We read every written Google review left for one kind of Canberra and Queanbeyan business over five years, and sorted what people praise and what they complain about. Three editions so far, with nearly 60,000 reviews between them.
22,255 reviews of 632 trade businesses
Customers write about two things: the job, and how you treated them. Just over half of all reviews talk about the quality of the work. Just over half talk about manners: being polite, respectful and easy to deal with. Nine businesses in ten have at least one review saying the work was good.
Edition two, professional services
13,702 reviews of 535 listings
Clients write about two things more than anything else: how they were treated, and whether the work was good. Six in ten positive reviews (62 per cent) say the firm was professional and courteous. Four in ten (40 per cent) talk about the quality of the work. Nearly every firm has both: 424 of 476 have at least one review about how clients were treated, and 405 have one about the work.
24,035 reviews of 540 listings
A registered practice can't use a review in its advertising if the review mentions anything clinical: a symptom or the reason for the visit, the diagnosis or treatment, the outcome, or the practitioner's skill or experience. Under the National Law those reviews are testimonials, and testimonials are banned from health advertising. That rules out three in four good reviews. Of 17,849 positive reviews of registered practices, only 4,521 (25.3 per cent) leave out anything clinical and talk only about the experience: the welcome, the kindness, the clean rooms, the booking.
Each edition reads every written Google review for the businesses in it, from customers describing their own experience. Star-only reviews and reviews about something else are left out.
Every review is sorted into topics from one fixed list we use for every edition, and each topic is tied to the reviewer's own words. That's what lets you put one edition beside another.
Reviews can't tell you why someone chose a business, or whether the work was good. They tell you what people chose to write down. Each report says what it can't show, section by section.
Think a figure's wrong? Email kai@wellhandled.au with the edition and the section, and we'll look at it.
Text a link to your Google listing to 0495 032 269, or email it to Kai. You'll get one page on what your own customers write about you.