White Hat Google Places Reviews (Will 3G iPads work?)

(I tried searching "review sites" and Google Places, but it looks like everything was black hat or had companies to outsource to. We are looking to do this in house. If I missed a thread I apologize in advance.)

So I have a total legit business that has a lot of good things about it, but our online reputation sucks. Finally in house decisions have been made to correct this - w00t w00t. We have more enough in house manpower to generate good reviews from our customers. Here are the two options on the table:

1. Get a bunch of 3G iPads and have the customer submit the review in house? (this was the "other person")

.... Apparently there are other companies doing this that we are in a business group with - They claim that the IP's change? I thought this was the total old school way of doing it???

2. Call the customer after they have done business with us and see if they can submit a review - If they print out confirmation we give them a free oil change or free tank of gas. (My idea)

So a couple questions:
- Which is the best route -- 1, 2, or other?
- Won't we eventually get our IP blocked even we are using the iPads?
- Do you think buying proxies would be a good option? lol. I mean, this is a legit business and all. We're just trying to get some good reviews!
- How do we manager the reviews: All on Google Places? Distributed evenly across all sites?

Let me know if you have any questions. I'll be pressing F5 waiting for some answers! lol.

Ok. Looked a little more into it and found out that ..

- "Review Stations" could be used for Google Places. You can have as many reviews from the same IP as you would like.
- Reviews from the same IP for all other review sites are a no-no.

I think I'm going to implement solution 2 and try and get reviews on all sites equally.

Couldn't you email all your customers with the links directly to the page to place the review?

Then you can match up the names and just offer the voucher to the people who write reviews under their real name - so you can be sure they won't leave spammy comments or fake names just to get the voucher.

I like your plan B better. This way you kill 2 birds with one stone - stay in touch with your customers, plus, no proxies or buying of ipads is required.

iantendo said:

Couldn't you email all your customers with the links directly to the page to place the review?

Then you can match up the names and just offer the voucher to the people who write reviews under their real name - so you can be sure they won't leave spammy comments or fake names just to get the voucher.

Click to expand...

The reason why we don't send out an e-mail to all of our customers is because - well, the business I'm in isn't exactly one people are always happy with (car biz). So we want to make sure they did have a good experience first - Then if they did .. They post. Then give them gifts! lol.

I'm sure we COULD get some reviews up there without giving anything away, but whatev - we give them a free tank of gas for filling out another survey anyway. So we can just parlay that into it.

A custom Review gateway is the way to go. New Google+ local will not allow the review station idea. You need a google plus account and you will not be allowed to log in and out of accounts all day with the same Ipad. Ipad will stay with the same external IP even thought the internal IP may changed based on the Ipads location.

Need a custom review gateway to filter out the poor reviews? I can help.

I would be interested also with a custom review gateway to filter out the poor reviews.