Remember This. Always Be Professional!
Remember these 4 things before you make any quick response.
1. 1 bad review isn't as bad as you think
2. It's never pleasant for a 3rd party to see two people get in an argument.
3. No response can be as bad as making the wrong response
4. Burying bad reviews with many good reviews is always the best option. We can help with this through our review management software.
I know it feels bad and you can't believe it happened but...
Take a deep breath and let's first decide what is the best plan of attack.
Is The Review Real?
Why?
Competitors might create them under their own gmail accounts or create a new gmail account and write a bad review.
Or…
Competitors might pay 3rd party companies to create fake reviews on you.
Yep! This happens. If this review is fake, you need to report the review to Google.
How To Report Fake, Spammy, Hateful Reviews
When you click the icon it will take you to another page to give more details and include your email address with the report. Here is what that page looks like.
You can choose only one of the options. Hopefully the user included a lot hateful things (this makes it easier to get the review removed). If not, choose the option that includes “spam”.
You can also call Google My Business @ 1-844-491-9665
Take Care Of It Offline...First!
See if you can make the customer happy and get a commitment that they will remove the review or change the review.
FYI – After you make it right, you will probably have to remind the person over and over again to keep their end of the commitment.
WARNING:**** If you give an intense response online, it might make it impossible to solve the underlaying problem offline and get the review removed permanently.
Good Examples: These Are Real
This is a fantastic response. First it wasn’t an immediate emotional response. They apologized and explained how they have fixed the problem that caused the bad experience.
When I first read this I gained more respect for the business.
The problem is that this business only has 3 reviews so I am still a little weary because there isn’t enough proof to show this is a good company.
Another great example of a company owning the mistake. Good reasonable people will read this and understand that nobody is perfect. It is more impressive to be humble, admit fault, and be willing to resolve the issue than to be prideful and not want to make it right.
This is an example of making sure the customer is a real customer. If you can’t find this customer in your database, this is a great way to respond.
FYI – Check the past reviews by this person and see if there are any odd or suspicious patterns in the reviews. This might mean that they are writing a bunch of fake reviews. You can get this user removed from Google which would also remove the fake review from your GMB.
Another good example of a business saying sorry and explaining their error or inability to be perfect.
Bad Examples: These Are Real
This isn’t a terrible response but it still leaves the reader torn between who is telling the truth and who isn’t.
Most readers would read this and then look at the overall rating for the company and if the majority of reviews are good they would typically trust the company. If the majority are bad, then they will trust the reviewer.
Resources
This article was written by Garret Merkley the owner of eWebify. Garret has been marketing and helping local businesses online since 2010. Whatever there is online he has experienced and dealt with it.
We gathered the bad reviews and the examples straight from Google. Thanks Google & people who were not happy.
P.S. If you need help getting, managing, monitoring reviews eWebify can help. We are also one of the top pay per call marketing companies and would love to help get you leads.