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Google customer reviews are replacing Google Trusted Stores program, offering further insight into the seller rating for merchants.

Google Customer Reviews allow sellers to collect valuable reviews for free, from customers who have bought something online. This differs from the traditional Google review where reviews can be about any business, and the review can be more generic such as about an instore purchase or customer service experience. Google Customer Reviews are only available to businesses with an online store.

This new adoption of only allowing online customers to leave a review allows potential new customers to read reliable reviews from a trustworthy source, knowing that they are most definitely from previous buyers.

Once a customer has bought something online, they have the option to opt-in to receiving an email survey to rate their buying experience.

The reviews will contribute to your seller rating, which are automated extensions that can appear on both Google Shopping and text ads, and are likely to show when feedback is related to what’s being shown in a specific ad. Typically seller ratings will appear when a business has at least 150 unique reviews and an average rating of 3.5 stars or more.

You should already be opted-in to show seller ratings with your ads, but to double check, go to the automated extensions report and check whether you’ve ticked the box to opt out of them, or any other extensions.

Unfortunately you won’t automatically start receiving verified reviews, instead you need to opt-in to the customer reviews. Google outline the below to opt-in:

• Sign in to your Merchant Center account
• Navigate to the top right hand corner drop down and select “Merchant Center programmes”
• Click “enable” in the Google Customer Reviews card and accept the Program Agreement
• Add the survey opt-in code to your site
• [Optional] Add the badge code to your site wherever you want. This will make the badge appear on your site, allowing you to display your seller rating and show customers that you’re integrated with Google Customer Reviews.

For more information on Google Customer Reviews, contact a member of the team today.