Interview with lawyer, Jeanette, Onyx Legal
Interview transcript
Ellie Bakker, Marketing Director, Splice Marketing
So we get a lot of questions around Google reviews. Can you have them? Are you responsible for removing them? So what is the stance on Google reviews, can a healthcare professional have them, and if so, is there a compliant way and a noncompliant way?
Jeanette Jifkins, Principal Lawyer, Onyx Legal
The only compliant way is that you can have star ratings but you can’t have any commentary. So the very challenging thing you have with Google reviews is you can’t do anything with them once they’re there. And that could potentially make you non-compliant. Your only option would then be to remove all of your Google reviews, which for most people it’s just, it’s a process.
You need to be very careful about educating your clients as to what you can and can’t have in terms of Google reviews.
So you can say to them, “Look, we really, if you’d like to give us any feedback, we’d be really happy if you could give us a star rating, but please be careful not to write anything, because that’s considered a testimonial and we can have to answer to the regulator for that.” Because under the legislation, and believe me when the draft legislation came out, I put in submissions against this.
Under the legislation, you can’t have testimonials, and anything really writing about the service, the health service you’re providing is considered a testimonial.
