Review Us

Meet Ollie Our New Head of Happiness

Here’s Why it’s Not as Crazy as it Sounds

Ollie, the company mascot, is the chief observer of operations here at Absolute Precision Plumbing Heating & Cooling. He’s very good at reminding us what matters most to our customers. Rapid response, comfort, and an uninterrupted supply of fresh water.

Like most dogs, Ollie has a sixth sense. He is keenly aware of the mood and happiness level of people–and presumably other dogs. Since we want happy, satisfied customers we promoted Ollie to Head Happiness Hound.

In his new role Ollie is more than scratching the surface. He wants to dig up more feedback from customers so that we can continue to deliver award winning service. Right out of the gate he brought up two good points.

• Posting online reviews should be easy
• Customers spend valuable time writing reviews. Those reviews should be seen, not hidden.

Ollie’s right. It is easy to post a review on Google or Yelp. But Google has a habit of moving things around which can be confusing for some folks.

To make writing a review on Google as easy as possible we created a special link that takes you directly to the text box where you can write a review. Here’s how it works:

Select one of the 3 areas below. (Wakefield, Middleton, or Melrose)

When you click on one of the blue bars you’ll see the log in screen for Google. It’s already filled out with your username and password. (image below) If you don’t have a Gmail account click here.

Click “Sign in“. You’ll go directly to the page where you can write a review and give us a star rating. (image below)

Once you’ve written the review and given us a rating hit “Publish“. You’re all set. Thanks for the review!

Click on one of the bars below to write a review

No Gmail account. No problem. Here’s how you can set up Gmail in about 2 minutes.

When you click one of the blue bars above (Middleton, Wakefield, or Melrose) Google will ask you to either log in or create an account. (image below) You want to click “Create account”.

You will then see this form. Fill in your name, choose a username and password, then finish the form and hit next step. You’re all set. You now have Gmail.

Now that you have Gmail you can click on either of the three bars above to log in automatically and write a review. Thanks in advance for the review.

And on Ollie’s second point–to help people understand the reasons why Yelp, Google, and others might filter your reviews we’ve got a primer here.

Write a Review on Angies List

angieslist.com/review/6328469

About Review Filters

People love reading reviews. And lots of people are willing to spend valuable time writing them. The volume of online reviews seems to be growing significantly. We’d rather not see those people waste their time because Yelp, Google, or some other platform is filtering reviews.

What Yelp calls their “recommendation software” is far more active at filtering reviews than Google or any other platform. Neither Yelp or Google tell you exactly how to avoid filtering of reviews. But they do offer guidelines. And there’s plenty of research on the web on the topic. So we’ve put together a list. If you choose to write a review of your experience with us, with your favorite pizza place, or about places your dog loves, you’ll be able to do so with greater confidence your review will see the light of day.

Fill Out Your Profile

Experts agree that having a complete profile including a photo on Yelp is a big one. We’re not so sure how much of an effect, if any, it has on Google, but it can’t hurt.

Write More Reviews

The first review you write on Yelp will almost certainly be filtered. Google doesn’t appear to be flagging first-timers but both platforms are looking for signs that you’re human. Posting multiple reviews on a variety of businesses is a good sign.

Include Details

Google loves useful content. Explain why you did or did not like the food, service, or the experience and your chances of making it through the filter go up on both Yelp and Google. On Yelp people can vote for whether a review is useful, funny, or cool.

Avoid Repetition

Especially concerning keywords and names in the review itself. Repetition also applies to posting an identical review on multiple websites. Duplicate content is more likely to get pulled from Google than Yelp.

Participate

Google plus is much more than a review platform. It’s unlikely they’re filtering reviews just because a person is less engaged on Google plus. Yelp, on the other hand is all about reviews. But the platform has lots of social features too. If you’re checking in, getting and giving compliments, and have a bunch of friends your reviews are more apt to be visible.