What to do about fake reviews?
Businesses understand that negative reviews are a part of their routine and they have to face them. However, one thing that irritates businesses is fake negative reviews.
While negative reviews help companies learn from the mistakes they have made, fake reviews simply demotivate them and create a bad image of them in front of other customers.
These reviews can be posted by angry ex-employees, competitors, etc. For more info about these reviews, read the article!
Don’t take a hasty step:
It is understandable that if you see a fake review posted about your business, anger will build up inside you and you will want to defend yourself.
However, if you make a decision in that emotional state, you might not get the results you wanted and might worsen the situation. Therefore, if you see such a review, take some time to cool down. Once you know that you will not make a decision that you might regret, then do something about the whole situation.
Try to remove the review:
You should try to get the review removed as soon as possible. This will prevent other customers from seeing the negative review.
However, this might not be a very easy task. The removal of the review depends on the website it has been published on.
The Reviews marketplace is vast. Let’s take a look at some of the famous websites where reviews are published and how you get reviews removed on the said websites.
Facebook:
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Reviews on Facebook are only deleted if they are against Facebook’s community standards. These community standards include; sexual harassment, bullying, etc.
Therefore, to remove a review from Facebook you will have to report the review and wait for Facebook to go through it. If the review is against their standards, it will be removed within no time. Otherwise, the review will stay.
Yelp:
To get a review removed on Yelp you have to prove that the person who wrote the review had a conflict of interest, did not mention the customer experience, or if they used abusive language.
Follow the following steps to report a review on Yelp:
- Log in to Yelp.
- Find the review and click on the flag icon on the screen.
- Choose the reason why you want the review to be removed and give an explanation.
If the reason you have given matches with the criteria, the review will be removed. If not, then the review will stay.
Google:
The review that you want to get removed from Google should either be written by an impersonator or by someone who has a conflict of interest.
Again, however, one person will look at the evidence and if it does prove the given things, the review will be removed otherwise it will stay up.
To get a review removed from Google follow the given steps:
- Using Google Maps, look for your business.
- Go to the list of reviews.
- Click on the review you want to get removed.
- Click on the flag icon.
- Request that the review should be removed.
You should know that Google does not allow you to add an explanation. You can only request them to go through the review.
Try and get more positive reviews:
If you have one negative review in a sea of hundred positive reviews, you will not have to face the negative effects. Thus, to add a balance try to ask for more positive reviews from your loyal customers.
All you have to do is send emails and text messages to your clients and ask them to post reviews on the website. Try and target your loyal customers to ensure only positive comments get posted.
