In this episode Mandy York (Music Time of Milford)shares a recent experience with a negative Google review and how she handled it, then she and John Kozicki (Michigan Rock School and RockSchoolProprietor.com) use that story to explore the broader effects reviews have on reputation and website SEO. We cover Google’s updated rules on review solicitation, what practices are now risky, and practical approaches (calm responses, surveys, and steady community engagement) to protect your business.
We also talk about the emotional toll of public criticism and why building genuine community trust and doing reliable, everyday work matters more than trying to game the review system. The episode mixes strategy, cautionary tales, and teacher-best practices for running a sustainable, trusted music school.
In this episode:
- How to navigating negative reviews of your music school and strategies to approach client conflict resolution
- How Google’s evolving policies on reviews and rating manipulation could potentially negatively impact your lesson studio if you aren’t careful
- The practical strategies for encouraging genuine reviews that won’t get you flagged
- What you can do to balance your lesson studio policies, where to be flexible, and and how client education should be an ongoing initiative
- How review ecosystems impact SEO and your small business’s reputation
Rock School Proprietor is a podcast for independent music school owners and lesson studio operators looking to attract more students and create a sustainable business. New episodes drop Wednesdays at RockSchoolProprietor.com and on all podcast streaming platforms.
Interested in the Building a Band Program webinar?
We’re planning a free live webinar to accompany the Building a Band Program series of episodes on Friday, July 24, 2026. John will go deeper on the topics and answer your questions directly. If you’re interested, send an email to info@rockschoolproprietor.com with the subject line Webinar and we will be in touch with details.
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Episode Transcript:
(Please note: This transcript was generated by robots. There may be errors. For the best experience, please listen to the podcast episode.)
John Kozicki (00:01.226)
Welcome to Rock School, proprietary podcast. My name’s John Kozicki. Hey, Mandy. Just as I hit record, there was a lawnmower that started across the street. So hopefully not too noisy. We’re gonna start this, you’re gonna start this episode. You have a story to share about a bad review.
Mandy York (00:04.994)
and I’m Mandi York.
Mandy York (00:12.75)
Spring is here.
Mandy York (00:24.352)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (00:31.346)
Ugh.
Mandy York (00:31.771)
No, it’s a sad story.
John Kozicki (00:34.924)
We’ve all, well, I shouldn’t say we’ve all been there. don’t, knock on wood, I don’t think I have any negative Google reviews for my music school. But I’ve definitely had unhappy customers and clients in the past. One last weekend actually at our concert. so why don’t you share your story about this recent
Mandy York (00:39.928)
Right.
Mandy York (00:51.768)
Customers, sure.
Mandy York (00:56.136)
Hahaha.
John Kozicki (01:05.397)
negative review that you got and we’re gonna just go off on talking about how to improve that stuff and maybe like fix it and like what is best practices for reviews and whatnot. So what happened?
Mandy York (01:12.439)
yeah.
Mandy York (01:17.934)
yeah, there’s a lot here. Yeah, it’s a sad story. I’m feeling so vulnerable too. Man, when something like this happens. Well, okay. You know that I teach early childhood, young kids, caregivers, all in the room with me. I’m semester based. So families sign up for 10 weeks at a time. This was a new family. They attended in the winter months, the winter semester. It was a good experience. They were in a good
John Kozicki (01:24.461)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (01:44.462)
Mm-hmm.
Mandy York (01:47.694)
class. Nothing of note, really. We took like spring break off. We’re into the spring semester. So the new session had already started maybe week two or three. We’re into that. Next session.
John Kozicki (02:04.215)
So they’re no longer in classes, okay, when this happens. Sure.
Mandy York (02:06.753)
They’re no longer in. Yep. For whatever reason. and she emailed, she emailed our admin, you know, just the generic admin email that she needed three makeup classes because her daughter was sick one week in the winter and they went out of town for two weeks. and so our admin relayed the policy replied and said, you know, makeup classes don’t roll over into consecutive sessions.
John Kozicki (02:24.919)
Mm-hmm.
Mandy York (02:36.722)
mom was, wasn’t satisfied with that answer. So she emailed back and
John Kozicki (02:42.741)
So just to interject, because I think it’s important for context, and I think I know the answer to this, but you do have ways for people to make up. Do you have ways for people to make up during that semester? Yeah. OK. All right. Sorry.
Mandy York (02:55.209)
Yes. Yes. Yeah. And I want to get into that. Like that’s important to this story too. No, that’s good. She, mom argued back and said, well, no, I’m, I’m owed these classes. And admin replied again, more specifically pointing to where the policy is on our website. and that it’s in our, registration process, like families have to like check that they’ve read the.
the policy. And then instead of replying to that email, mom called the studio. And so I spoke with mom. And yes, so the background on this policy is that a class, the language is makeup. Makeup classes are not guaranteed with tuition. Okay. But if, if and when there is room, families can access
John Kozicki (03:32.545)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (03:47.752)
Mm-hmm, right?
Mandy York (03:55.126)
an online makeup scheduler and they can kind of, it’s a self-serve RSVP. So, we’re very full. So a lot of times someone has to be missing for a spot to open up, but that’s something that the admin handles. Okay. Susie is going to be on vacation next week. I’m going to open up her spot online so that someone else can come in and take it. Take them preemptively. mean, I feel like it’s.
It’s generous, you know.
John Kozicki (04:26.657)
I think it’s generous given that these are group classes. That’s just my personal perspective. As both someone who offers group classes, but also as a parent of kids who are involved in some group classes, I think that’s super generous.
Mandy York (04:29.867)
Yes. Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Mandy York (04:44.459)
Yeah. Yes. And that’s important to me. We do our best. And, but I do know like, I have to, I oftentimes hand out a paper copy of our policies at the beginning of the semester. It is on the website in the registration page, you know, that the families go through, they have to read and then check that they have read the terms and conditions, right? So it’s there.
John Kozicki (05:04.567)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (05:10.967)
Yeah.
Mandy York (05:12.821)
I make sure everybody knows so that I don’t have this someone saying, well, I am owed this like, wait, wait, let’s go back and look. So I got on the phone with her. I, well, you have to be, think, you know, cause I don’t, I want to avoid these kinds of conversations. so I talked with her and I was very apologetic. I said, I’m really, you know, gosh, I’m really sorry. Like we just don’t have anything right now.
John Kozicki (05:19.243)
Right, yeah. You’re very thorough. You’re very thorough.
John Kozicki (05:36.628)
Mm-hmm.
Mandy York (05:42.198)
Our semester’s just started. We’re completely full. Reiterated the policy. And I explained to her that we just, we would never have the capacity to let makeup classes roll over from session to session. We, you know, if people are on vacation one semester, I have to take care, right? I tried to explain that to her. Her wording was that she was just.
John Kozicki (06:00.108)
Yeah.
All right, yeah, yes.
Mandy York (06:08.417)
very disappointed. This is very disappointing and this is, I just think this is a bad way to do business. Okay. So I totally, totally.
John Kozicki (06:10.028)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (06:18.891)
Yeah, there’s a little dig there. I recognize that as like a little dig to try and get her way.
Mandy York (06:26.413)
Uh huh. But I, I mean, really I stuck to my policies, which I thought were fair. I did apologize. I said, I mean, we’d love to have you guys back in class. You know, I hope it works out again. Um, I, I just can’t accommodate it. Um, we don’t have the capacity. Um, she kept, she kept pushing and pushing and I did at one point I said, I understand. And, you know, I think about like,
John Kozicki (06:43.917)
Mm-hmm.
Mandy York (06:53.909)
My daughters are in things like music lessons and sports. And when, you know, if we go out of town, I, you know, I can’t, there’s usually not an opportunity to get an extra volleyball practice in. It’s just, you know, we missed that one. That kind of, I mean, she kind of slowed down after that point anyway. But I, I said, yeah, again, just kind of ended the call. Like, I’m, really sorry we can’t.
John Kozicki (07:08.565)
Right, Yeah.
Mandy York (07:24.255)
accommodate this, but we hope to see you in the studio again soon. I didn’t have a good feeling. And I’ve never I’ve never received negative reviews on Google. And I’ve actually never again, this is my 11th year, I’ve never had anyone push back on this like that before either. So within a couple hours, her negative review popped up on Google. It was it was not very nice.
John Kozicki (07:31.329)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (07:44.727)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (07:51.303)
Yeah.
Mandy York (07:53.326)
yeah, I, I don’t know. don’t know how much we need to get into the review. It was, it was pretty clearly like just unkind. These classes aren’t even really for kids. They were very boring. That kind of thing, you know?
John Kozicki (08:08.937)
Yeah, well, so I did have I did have questions on that because and maybe we’ll get into this a little bit further into the conversation, but do you feel like do you feel like the review was representative of what she had a problem with regarding the experience or was it just retribution? I’m going to say whatever I want about this.
regardless of like context. Does that make sense?
Mandy York (08:42.719)
Yeah, it does. And I remember feeling like this is just unkind, actually. She didn’t get what she wanted. And so she wrote this review because she sat on, she emailed several times. She sat on the phone with me for several minutes wanting classes, right? She wanted to come in for classes and then went online and said, these classes really are not good. You know, so it,
John Kozicki (08:50.445)
Mm.
John Kozicki (09:10.381)
Right, right. I want these classes that are not very good.
Mandy York (09:12.925)
So to me, yes. Yeah. So in my opinion, it was just kind of retaliation for not getting what she wanted there. Yeah. That’s, that’s my sad story. Bomber. Okay. So there’s, there’s a few things about this that I want to kind of point out and we’ll dive into all the conversation. Flexibility is a really good thing. Okay.
John Kozicki (09:18.893)
You
John Kozicki (09:26.389)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
John Kozicki (09:40.631)
Mm-hmm.
Mandy York (09:41.44)
And I use my judgment and I make accommodations for my families because we are a small business. We are a small community. We have a really strong culture, right? If I have pregnant moms that think that they’re going to come in six weeks after baby with their baby and their toddler and they get in and they’re like, what did I do? I’m not ready for this. I say, you take your time and come back when you’re ready, right?
John Kozicki (09:53.613)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (10:03.752)
Yes. Yeah.
John Kozicki (10:08.897)
Right.
Mandy York (10:09.901)
Because on the flip side, have some moms that come in three weeks post delivery. I am serving young families and young mothers, and I want what’s best for them. I make accommodations for that. I’ve got patients dealing with childhood leukemia, mom going through chemo treatments. We are in the business of people and families, and I make accommodations.
John Kozicki (10:19.2)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (10:31.273)
shirt.
John Kozicki (10:36.308)
Mm-hmm.
Mandy York (10:37.781)
Okay, I think that’s important. want I just want to put out that out there. I would never say I’m so sorry. Like we do not schedule makeups. You’ll have to reschedule your chemo treatments. Like come on guys. This is not what I’m doing. That’s not what we’re doing. Okay, and we do have this makeup scheduler that we provide. It’s like a free service, right? Like I don’t have to be organizing the schedule to provide you with makeup classes.
John Kozicki (10:50.956)
Exactly. Exactly.
John Kozicki (11:02.22)
Can I?
John Kozicki (11:07.34)
Can I put you at ease for a second? Yeah, like I don’t think that you need to, like it’s clear, like you care. You’ve demonstrated that. I don’t think you have to justify it to like, at least to me or like listeners. think we’re all, in the same boat. This isn’t like a rare case, I think.
Mandy York (11:08.941)
Can you tell that I’m getting worked up?
Mandy York (11:19.721)
Yeah. OK.
Mandy York (11:35.841)
Yes. yeah.
John Kozicki (11:36.811)
you know, 11 years of, of kind of the standard procedure. And for the most part, right? Everyone’s like, okay, who knows? Maybe along the way someone else thought this, but they didn’t, you know, they didn’t go to, you know, tarnish your reputation. But yeah, flexibility, you offer it. And I think most people would look at that and
Mandy York (11:56.749)
Hmm.
Mandy York (12:02.423)
Yes.
John Kozicki (12:06.782)
and understand that this entire thing of life and parenting and schedules and how busy our world is, is about balance. And we’re all trying to find that point where everything doesn’t all topple over. So, good on you.
Mandy York (12:17.997)
Mm-hmm.
Mandy York (12:25.483)
Yes. Yeah. Well, I think I’m trying to express that we, there’s a balance between that being flexible, being human and compassionate and, holding to your policies. Right. That is something we’ve talked about on this podcast before. Like policies are important. They’re important for, for you, for your business, for your, for your clients so that they have those clear expectations in place. Right. And, and
John Kozicki (12:35.051)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (12:38.635)
Right.
John Kozicki (12:44.416)
Yes.
Mandy York (12:55.371)
They save you time and money and all that too. So, and I think the other thing I wanted to point out about the story too is that parent education and like, or client education, right, helps in these situations. It slipped through the cracks. She didn’t see it. I honestly don’t know how, but you put it out there as much as you can so that you don’t have somebody coming back saying, well,
John Kozicki (13:21.024)
Right.
Mandy York (13:23.871)
I didn’t see that. Where is it? You know, you’ve got to kind of cover yourself and make sure everyone’s getting those policies. Yeah. So in that conversation, I was nervous about retaliation because I could just feel it. It was weird. And I stuck to the policy. But what would you have done? Have you had a situation like that?
John Kozicki (13:50.483)
well.
Mandy York (13:52.193)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (13:53.58)
So I don’t know if it’s the same, like this just happened a couple days ago with me where I was like expecting, and maybe it’ll still come, maybe a bad review will still come, but I was sort of expecting one because we had our student concerts last weekend and we had an incident where a mom was really unhappy at the end of the performance because this was with our kids rock kids, four to seven year olds were.
Like at the end of those performances, we put all the kids who are participating in this concert on stage together and they’re singing like a song while we have our instructors backing them up. We call it the epic jam, right? And so we’ve got like, I don’t know, 12 kids on stage, of groups of four around three microphones.
Mandy York (14:35.245)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
John Kozicki (14:47.627)
It’s super cute. It’s super fun, right? We tell the kids like, okay, kind of make room for everyone. You’re all sharing this microphone. You got to sing loud, know, stand back a little bit. you know, but they’re five and six year olds, right? So just the visual is cute. You know what I mean? And so two siblings, two brothers in the classes.
Mandy York (14:59.167)
yeah.
Mandy York (15:09.003)
Mm-hmm. Yes.
John Kozicki (15:17.349)
and they get in a little scuffle. One of them’s edging the other one out trying to get in front of the microphone. And I’m like on the drums kind of backing up the band. And I look up and I see the mom on stage and not happy. And she yanks one of the kids off stage. And I was like, my gosh, what just happened? Right? And then so we get done. And like my other instructors tell me that she’s not happy.
Mandy York (15:42.69)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (15:47.89)
So I did go to her shortly after I said, well, what was going on? What happened? Can you tell me what happened? And she just was not having it. She was not happy. She said that the entire experience was ruined for her. Her son was angry. Her son was crying. And I’m like, well, is there anything that we could do to change this right now?
Because legitimately I would like to know all right did we miss something is there something we can we can adjust so that we can do a better job next time Her suggestion was to have a microphone for each kid and she can’t does not understand why we didn’t have a microphone for each for each child and I Can see where she’s coming from maybe as someone who doesn’t understand the logistics of it, but you and I know
that if we’ve got 12 kids on stage to sing, mean, logistically, it just, like, I don’t even know if there are 12 inputs available for 12 microphones. So, yeah, she had just made up her mind that she was not happy. I don’t know what else was going on. I don’t know, maybe like, like in hindsight, could she have been embarrassed that she went on stage?
and like her kids were on stage fighting, maybe, and maybe looking to deflect a little, I don’t know. Maybe she wasn’t happy with something else about the program weeks and weeks ago and it just sort of built up, I’m not sure. So you never know. Didn’t result in a bad review, but I think you did everything that you could.
Mandy York (17:13.292)
Yeah.
Mandy York (17:17.581)
Mm-hmm.
Mandy York (17:38.51)
Great. Yeah. I think, and you too, like, I, I was, I found myself thinking about this, like, okay, I’m, I’ve did the right thing. I’m happy with how I handled it now. How would have I handled it eight to 10 years ago? Right. and how different would it have felt back then?
John Kozicki (17:56.576)
Yeah. Yeah.
John Kozicki (18:05.619)
What do you think? What would you have done?
Mandy York (18:07.701)
Well, I would have done what I was doing all the time, especially in the very, very beginning. Like, here, you can come to these classes anyway, you know, like, or let me give you a discount off the next semester, you know, like just give giving away giving away.
John Kozicki (18:12.907)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (18:30.419)
Which I’d say might not, back then, might not have been the wrong choice either. Because at that point, your big goals might be different, building reputation. Right, like at that point, I mean, I don’t know how many Google reviews you have, but at that point, if you had two Google reviews, and then all of a sudden you get like a scathing horrible review, that…
Mandy York (18:36.429)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (18:54.879)
has a greater impact than now if you’ve got 30 reviews and you get one bad review or whatever your numbers are, you know? Yeah.
Mandy York (18:59.947)
Yes. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. It’s it was really it was really jarring to me when it all happened when I read the review. Like it is emotional when something like that happens. I just couldn’t help it. Like I was frustrated. I was worried, you know, and I had all this self
John Kozicki (19:27.689)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Mandy York (19:28.887)
doubt, like, but I purposefully didn’t do anything about it. Like I just, you know, and I think this is maybe right, good life advice, like sit with it for a minute before you act on emotions, right? Definitely. Because particularly with Google, and that’s what we’re talking about here, you can respond to these reviews, like public responses.
John Kozicki (19:46.931)
Right, yes.
John Kozicki (19:54.847)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Mandy York (19:56.93)
Maybe that’s a good choice sometimes. Obviously reaching out to the client, whatever else you might do, but I did not make a move. I just, I gave myself some time to calm down.
John Kozicki (20:06.547)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (20:10.728)
Are you going to respond to the review?
Mandy York (20:13.873)
I thought I was, I thought I was going to respond, so that I could kind of clear my name a little bit, you know, like a, you know, we’re really sorry. We couldn’t accommodate the request. but per our policies, you know, it’s not possible. I mean, yeah, you, you want to say something like we can’t give makeup classes when families go out of vacation for two weeks.
John Kozicki (20:41.746)
Right. Yeah. Well, that’s the thing. I mean, you definitely don’t want to get into like a flame war, you know, back and forth, right? But I mean, I think you probably should. I think you should reply, you know, and in part, like I know that’s best practices for Google reviews. Google wants you to reply, and that’s probably regardless of if it’s good or bad.
Mandy York (20:55.029)
You do. Okay.
Mandy York (21:01.409)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (21:11.592)
You know, like, but yeah, definitely cool down a bit and then reply in like an honest, in an honest way, you know? Hey, like you said, sorry we couldn’t accommodate. And then you move on.
Mandy York (21:28.543)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I was, this is a few weeks now. So since it happened, and I, yeah, I mean, I’m over it. I, but I kind of resolved to like do nothing, but you’re, you’re telling me I should, I can think on it some more.
John Kozicki (21:35.892)
Mm-mm.
John Kozicki (21:45.161)
Yeah. Well, I think my advice is, it’s like, my advice is really based on what Google says you should do. You know, like personally, you know, either way, think.
Mandy York (21:55.424)
Okay. Okay.
Mandy York (22:01.173)
Yeah. So when we talk about comparing, you know, know, music time 10 years ago and now I do have the reviews, right? And I do have folk. I do have they’re all positive reviews except this one. And I do have the word of the mouth and, you know, and like I thought after this happened, like I was in a community event, you know, like
John Kozicki (22:10.333)
Mm-hmm.
Mandy York (22:27.453)
volunteering at a community event like the weekend afterwards. And then I was in a meeting earlier this week with another group planning another summer thing. Like I’m out in my community. People know me. I’m I have a strong reputation, right? You know that you’re the same way. So I decided just to to let it go. Now I might as my spring session ends. We’ve talked about this in another episode before we’ve talked about surveying.
John Kozicki (22:41.224)
Mm-hmm. Right. Mm-hmm.
Mandy York (22:55.369)
It’s, I’m up for, it’s survey time this semester. I don’t do it every semester. I might push reviews a little more now to kind of bury it or just make sure that there’s more recent positive reviews on the Google page, right?
John Kozicki (22:59.988)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (23:12.636)
Yes. Okay, so I’m glad you mentioned this. Yeah, because, and this is purely coincidence. I mean, we talked about doing this episode over a week ago, and just this past week, I learned that Google is kind of changing. I don’t know what the word would be.
Mandy York (23:16.257)
Are you ready to school me?
John Kozicki (23:42.635)
I don’t know if it’s rules, but like Google’s changing some things with reviews and they’re sort of setting up like some stricter policies of their own, I think is what it sounds like. so let’s see. I, a ton of notes that like in quotes from Google’s actual review stuff that they updated. Cause I want to make sure I get this stuff correct.
Mandy York (24:12.619)
Yeah, and I’m really curious. I want to take notes on this.
John Kozicki (24:12.888)
So I guess you had posed a question to me, and I don’t know if you said it just now or if it’s in your notes, like how much do Google reviews matter? And like I look at it from sort of two perspectives. I mean, I look at it from the perspective of SEO, right? And how Google uses your reviews.
Mandy York (24:26.667)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (24:45.032)
the reviews of your business. And in that respect, like, yes, they’re very important. Like, so Google, for one, it’s an SEO thing that’ll improve your SEO. And in fact, I did Sarah Campbell’s SEO webinar a few weeks ago, and she had some great things to say about…
SEO and Google reviews and I think, hold on, let me look. Yeah, Sarah was on episode 71 and we talked a lot about authenticity and marketing. And so I really love her perspective on it, but the reviews are good for SEO. But what I learned also is that Google looks at four factors that impact your Google ranking related to
reviews. so it looks, and this is where, like, this impacts your, maps. So like where you’re going to show up on, on Google maps and all this is tied to SEO, highest rating, highest quantity of reviews, consistency of those ratings. And then also, most recent
Mandy York (25:42.952)
wow.
John Kozicki (26:11.463)
reviews. And I think consistency means like in terms of frequency, like is there a steady trickle of these reviews? Or is there like, all of a sudden a bunch of reviews, and then like no reviews? I think it wants that steady trickle. What also came to mind when it when it comes to thinking about
Mandy York (26:34.071)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (26:41.299)
how much these reviews matter. When we talked with Amy Nunes from Ensemble, she had mentioned like when they’re evaluating businesses to evaluating music schools to purchase, that’s something that they look at. Do you have like a steady number of reviews and a good amount of reviews? Jeff Homer, CEO of Ensemble, when I spoke to him, he said the same thing.
I mean, in that respect, think if you do ever want to sell your studio, that’s important. So there’s like kind of the business side of are these reviews important? And like for Google, yes, they’re important. But then, like, let’s talk about the practical side. You know, the practical side, like when you and I are on on Google and we’re looking at reviews.
like one, and I don’t know if you feel this way, but as a consumer, when I look at reviews of anything online, I, at this point, I just assume that they’re polarizing, right? I just assume that it’s like all these five star reviews and then like nothing. And then like one star reviews, it’s almost like, it’s almost like there is no
there is no wow, was an okay meal. know? It’s like, that was the most amazing meal I ever had or boy, let me tell you how horrible this meal was. I kind of get it because that’s tied to emotion, right? And if I’m like, man, that was fine. I’m not necessarily moved to like review something. But like we, like I think,
Mandy York (28:12.445)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Mandy York (28:31.181)
Mm-hmm.
Mandy York (28:34.795)
Yeah. Yeah, totally.
John Kozicki (28:38.907)
As humans, we sort of expect that now. We expect it’s gonna be like, there is no in-between. It’s like pass, fail, right? I don’t know. Is that just me or is it, you like that too? Okay.
Mandy York (28:49.345)
Yeah. No, that’s how I approach these things too. Yeah. And where do I use them? I look at Google reviews for businesses a little bit. Amazon, I’ve got to admit, that’s where I’m looking at reviews if I’m purchasing something. And I go to the most negative reviews and you can, you can read them. Yeah. And it’s like, they’re just mad that it’s
John Kozicki (29:10.085)
Right? What’s wrong with this thing? Yeah.
Mandy York (29:16.193)
didn’t arrive fast enough or, they’re like, you can read, you can see like, this is, this is just like, and this person was upset. This was emotional, whatever. And you can get the idea there. So, same thing with businesses.
John Kozicki (29:17.885)
Yes.
John Kozicki (29:26.023)
Yeah. Yeah.
John Kozicki (29:33.417)
Well, yeah, and that’s why I was asking if when you when you do read this negative review that you got, is it?
Is it emotionally charged or is it a true representation of the experience? Like, I thought I would be able to make up these classes and turns out I wasn’t able to make up these classes. And because of that, I’m not happy one star because if it was that as weird as it sounds, I almost feel like that is good information because someone might read that and
If someone else thinks like, I want to be able to make up these classes anytime and at any point. And if it’s like, you know, a year and a half later and I want to make up this class, I want to make up this class. And if they’re not, if they realize like, I’m not going to get that here, well, then that’s it’s not for them. Right. And then they won’t exactly, exactly. So, but if the, review is more
Mandy York (30:35.361)
Right, and the review did its job.
John Kozicki (30:43.497)
emotionally charged. Like you said, these classes aren’t for kids.
Mandy York (30:49.293)
Yeah, it comes off as a little bit bizarre.
John Kozicki (30:52.539)
Yeah, yeah. So, right. So I think as a human, as a consumer, I think we can sort of read, read through that. yeah. So they do matter, right? But here’s the thing. Here’s the things that I was, I was learning. And this is, I’ve solicited reviews in the past in
Mandy York (31:08.247)
They do matter.
John Kozicki (31:21.677)
multiple in a few different ways. mean at some points it was simply just sending out emails to clients. Hey would you mind giving us a review you know if you like what we’re doing right?
Mandy York (31:34.157)
Do you do that to everyone enrolled, or are you targeting specific people?
John Kozicki (31:39.815)
Well, I haven’t done it in a while. And I think this is kind of important as these Google rules are changing. Another technique that I’ve used is, you know, when we get these great photos of kids at our concerts, I’ve sent an image to parents and saying like, hey, look at this great photo of your kid at the concert.
If you wouldn’t mind giving us a review, here’s the link. Recently, just actually last weekend for our concert, I put the little Google QR code on the back of the program and said, hey, if you are enjoying the show and you wanna leave us a review, here’s the QR code to scan. All of these tactics now,
that they’re kind of under scrutiny, it seems like from Google. Yeah. Okay. So I’m just going to read my notes because like, again, I don’t want to mess anything up because this is so new. It’s like literally as of this month and this month, April, 2026, Google rules regarding business reviews, and it’s all very complex too. So
Mandy York (32:39.629)
Tell me more.
John Kozicki (33:04.1)
I don’t claim to have all the answers here. Reviews and ratings should reflect genuine experience. That’s in quotes. And Google is cracking down on what they call rating manipulation. Now this is a direct quote from the Google help page. Rating manipulation refers to any attempt to directly or indirectly influence the star rating
of a piece of a place on the map through fake and misleading content. This includes but is not limited to soliciting fake reviews, coercing or pressuring customers for specific ratings or reviews or orchestrating coordinated campaigns to unfairly inflate or deflate a place’s rating. So now if you’re following that’s
There’s a lot to unpackage there. The two things that I thought were kind of interesting were faking this idea of rating manipulation. And they talk about fake engagement. Yeah, again, more quotes, right? So fake engagement, and this says, we do not allow merchants or users to solicit or enc-
the posting of content that does not represent a genuine experience. Offer incentives such as payment, discounts, free goods and or services in exchange for posting any review or revision or removal of a negative review. So I think that might be, that one is kind of interesting to me because I’ve definitely seen like, hey, get a discount on this if you.
give us a review or hey, be entered into this contest to win something if you give us a review. So that’s like the attempt is gaming the system, right? And so I think what Google’s looking for is to eliminate that kind of stuff. And again, going back to that idea of the genuine experience, that’s really what they wanna highlight.
Mandy York (35:02.7)
Yeah.
Mandy York (35:17.578)
Mm-hmm. Good.
Mandy York (35:31.351)
Yes.
John Kozicki (35:31.592)
But wait, there’s more. Go ahead if you… No, reply, please do.
Mandy York (35:34.061)
Well, okay. All right. I want how? How? How do they know? Yes. Are they in my Gmail? Like reading that I’m sending emails to people saying please reveal like, what’s happening? How do they know?
John Kozicki (35:41.094)
How are they gonna do it?
John Kozicki (35:51.484)
Hmm. I can’t confirm or deny really, but I mean, could they be? Maybe. I mean, I use Google workspace for my Gmail, right? mean, AI is pretty, their AI is pretty, pretty slick, right?
Mandy York (35:56.877)
All right.
Mandy York (36:03.085)
Yep, me too. I mean…
Mandy York (36:13.197)
I’m all about, whenever I see those contests or, you know, incentives to, to, to to rate people on Google, like that’s no good. I don’t think anybody should be doing that. That’s right. I don’t think that’s right. So cool. I’m all for that, but, how, how are they policing that really? That’s tricky. I’m very curious.
John Kozicki (36:24.84)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (36:35.664)
Right? mean, Google knows. But yeah, you’re talking about rating manipulation, which I have notes about that too, again, directly from the Google help page. So rating manipulation. And again, I’m going to read this. It’s a direct quote. We do not allow merchants to offer incentives such as payment, discounts, free goods and or services in exchange for posting any reviews.
Mandy York (36:38.861)
Okay. Okay.
John Kozicki (37:04.582)
very similar to just what we wrote about that fake engagement. Selectively solicit positive reviews from customers. So they don’t want you to like go to customers and be like, hey, can you give me a positive review? So when you said like, should I go to my long time clients and get more positive reviews to bury that negative one?
I don’t know. I don’t know if you should. I’m not sure. Okay, another bullet point here from this. Again, direct quote, when soliciting reviews, merchants should not require or pressure users to leave ratings or write reviews while on the premises, nor should they request that specific content to be included. Now it says we do allow merchants to solicit.
or encourage the posting of content that does represent a genuine experience without offering incentives to do so or attempting to influence the rating or the contents of the review.
Mandy York (38:18.221)
All right, I’m taking all this in. This is a little much.
John Kozicki (38:21.807)
I know, right? Because it’s like they want you to solicit reviews, but be careful how you do it.
Mandy York (38:23.941)
I mean, I…
Mandy York (38:30.541)
Right. mean, I think I get the idea. They want it to be organic, right? They want it to be more organic, like a real genuine review. But we were just saying, it doesn’t work that way. It just doesn’t no matter where you are. It’s, you’re either mad that the, the packaging was damaged when it arrived in the mail or, you know, you, your server took you. mean,
John Kozicki (38:37.883)
Mm-hmm.
John Kozicki (38:48.379)
Right.
Mandy York (39:00.459)
People review when they’re angry about things, not when they’re…
No one’s giving those, you know, three star reviews and giving you like a genuine, like, this was really good. Pasta was really great, but the such and such was overdone. Like, I don’t know. It’s. Okay.
John Kozicki (39:19.163)
gonna give you a hot take. I’m gonna give you a hot take and I think
John Kozicki (39:26.691)
It really sucks for like, because I go back to this idea of genuine experience, right? Google’s term, genuine experience.
We run small businesses in a small town. We’re mom and pop shops. As are most of the people who listen to this podcast, 100 % we have genuine experiences with our clients, right?
We’re not trying to game the system. We aren’t. We’re trying to run our legit, genuine experience businesses. But there are bad actors out there who have resources and are using AI or they have a huge budget that they can try and manipulate like consumers and pay for fake reviews and all this other stuff. That’s what Google’s trying to track down on. I get it, but like, hey, who’s paying the price?
Mandy York (40:25.099)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (40:25.179)
these people who now have to operate by the rules of the overlords who are setting policies because of the bad actors. And the irony is that like I didn’t mention earlier, but you were talking about your policies. Like it’s bad practice, I think in general for us as music school owners to
Mandy York (40:33.067)
Hahaha.
John Kozicki (40:50.855)
change our policies because we had a bad interaction with a client. You know, like that reactionary, like, oh, now I’m gonna put this in my policy and so that people can’t do it. And I feel like that’s what this is with this review, right? Here are all these bad things that people are doing with reviews to game the system. And then…
Google says like, oh, well, I’m trying to game the system. Well, we’re going to crack down on it. And it makes this such narrow lane for us to actually operate when we know our clients, we see them face to face. We are at a disadvantage now, I think, with this because we’ve got to tread super lightly. I don’t know.
Mandy York (41:29.473)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Mandy York (41:36.333)
Yeah, I’m really curious what this looks like in real life.
John Kozicki (41:41.935)
I guess we’ll see how it plays out. It made me think of, actually I got a text from, Jenny Townsend from the music compound, our friend earlier this week. And she was telling me, and like, when I got this text from her, I thought, this is awesome. Such a great idea. She said, Hey, it’s teacher appreciation week coming up. And she had mentioned that one thing that they do is they encourage.
Mandy York (41:44.023)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (42:10.918)
their clients, if they had good experience with their instructors to like leave a review, teacher appreciation, right? And highlight that concept of teacher appreciation, which I thought like, that’s a great idea. But now is that even not allowed? Is that going to be flagged as a violation of this because it was sort of incentivized to, okay, where is it? Where’s the?
It’s, did I say something? Maybe I didn’t put it in my notes, but there was something about like a specific staff member, like mentioning a specific staff member and that might flag, that might flag a review. Yeah. Yeah.
Mandy York (42:51.027)
Interesting. Because I always thought that was like a good thing to do. You know? Yeah.
John Kozicki (43:00.078)
Right. And like now it’s like, I don’t know, is it?
Sorry. Now we’re on my tangent about like.
Mandy York (43:05.949)
I don’t like this idea. I thought you were going to give me some really like good information on how Google reviews work. You just like blew everything up. Yeah.
John Kozicki (43:13.09)
I know, I know, I know. Well, and I thought I would be able to share like some good tactics and good strategies for our listeners, but like in light of all these changes that just happened, now I’m like, I don’t know how to give good advice in this arena, because I don’t know how this is gonna play out. And it’s like, to get back up on my soapbox here for a second, what personally frustrates me about this?
Mandy York (43:33.079)
Right.
John Kozicki (43:44.783)
is I feel like the tech companies like Google right now are all about like, hey, use AI, use AI for this, use AI for that, right? Like I can’t go into my Gmail without Google telling me I’m writing my email wrong, you know? And like suggesting I use Gemini to do whatever. And so it’s like,
Mandy York (44:06.238)
Yeah, totally.
John Kozicki (44:14.022)
use AI, use AI, use AI. But then here, in this situation, when we’re talking about reviews, they’re all about the genuine experience, right? And it’s not like there’s gonna be someone at, like if I, if one of my reviews got flagged and I tried to dispute it, it’s not like there’s gonna be a person at Google that looks at that. It’s gonna be AI, right?
But you and I both know that we are providing genuine experiences for our clients. what a buzz kill this has been all of a sudden and it’s all my fault, I’m sorry. Yeah.
Mandy York (44:48.781)
Exp- Yeah!
Mandy York (44:54.209)
Yeah. totally your fault. Man. mean, through all of this, you know, my sad story, my sad review story, I thought like one good thing to do would be to connect, genuinely connect with long time families and, and say, this would be a great thing to do for a small business. If you know, we, I appreciate the review.
And to me, that’s better than like sending out the big blanket thing. Like, hey, you’ve been with us a long time, you know, appreciate you. Would you consider writing a review?
John Kozicki (45:22.96)
Based on all of this…
John Kozicki (45:27.408)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (45:34.896)
So yeah, based on all of this, think you can, don’t take my advice for a gospel, but I think you still can. But it seems like it’s more about like, hey, if you wouldn’t mind leaving a review, here’s a link.
Mandy York (45:53.342)
Yeah, yeah. Okay.
John Kozicki (45:54.597)
Right? Hey, you’ve been with us for a while. We’d love a review.
and not suggesting good or bad or anything specific. It’s almost like, has to be so vague in general, right? Like, I don’t know, it’s really weird.
Mandy York (46:06.562)
Yeah.
John Kozicki (46:16.527)
Yeah.
Mandy York (46:16.839)
I want to read more about this now. Cool. well, what do we even do with that? How do we wrap this up? Reviews are important, but more important.
John Kozicki (46:22.478)
You
I don’t know. Yeah. How about if someone else knows more about this than we do at this point, or maybe can suggest how to proceed in this new Google environment, then let us know. Can we suggest people leave us a review for the podcast right now?
Mandy York (46:49.389)
I don’t know. You all make your own decisions. We won’t pressure you. No.
John Kozicki (46:53.51)
We certainly can’t request they’d leave a five-star review. Maybe a three-star review.
Mandy York (47:03.661)
well, reviews, they’re important early on. They’re really important. But you know what, as you go through this journey, your small business, like I think I feel, I know I feel this about your business too. Like just do the good work, be, you know, develop the great culture. The word of mouth is the most important thing. And yeah.
John Kozicki (47:28.965)
Mm-hmm.
And I suspect what will happen because again, all these changes with Google are very new, like literally within the last couple of weeks. So I expect that we’re going to see how this will play out and maybe change the review landscape over the course of the coming months. Maybe by the time this episode even airs, I don’t know. And maybe we’ll have some better strategies.
Mandy York (47:56.183)
so curious about how it’ll affect SEO. Okay. Okay, thanks a lot, John.
John Kozicki (48:03.335)
okay. Hang in there, everyone. So let’s wrap it up then and we’ll see you next time. All right, bye.
Mandy York (48:06.253)
You
That was cool. All right. Thanks. Take care. Bye.
