Google review simulator

The simulator above answers a projection question: if you obtain a certain number of reviews, at a certain rating, where does your average land?

Why simulate before starting

A collection campaign takes organisation. It is worth knowing in advance whether the result justifies the effort, and above all on what condition.

The most useful lesson is generally not the gain but the sensitivity to the rating of the new reviews. Try it: the same twenty-review campaign produces a very different result depending on whether they average 5 or 4.2.

Broad or targeted asking?

The temptation is to ask only the customers you assume are happy. That is a practice Google explicitly forbids, and it exposes the profile to a penalty.

The right approach is the opposite: ask everyone, and fix upstream whatever produces the negative reviews. The simulator helps measure what an unaddressed problem costs, and it is usually far more than it appears.

What the average hides

A rating is a number, not a reputation. Two profiles at 4.5 are not equivalent if one received its last review two years ago and the other three this month.

What the average conceals:

• Freshness. Visitors read recent reviews first.
• The reply rate. A profile with no replies looks abandoned, whatever the rating.
• The spread. Twenty 5-star reviews and five 1-star reviews give the same average as a uniform set at 4.2, but they do not tell the same story.

Next steps

If you know your target rating, move to the review calculator, which gives you the volume directly. For implementation, everything is in how to increase your Google reviews, and remember that volume is worthless if you do not reply.