WAR OF GOOGLE REVIEWS BETWEEN COMPETITORS AND HOW TO NOT BE A VICTIM!

? Written by Hajra Abdul Ghafoor

Legend has it that many eons ago, there lived a well-known monk, who was praised by everyone in town due to his truthfulness, honesty, hard work and kindness.

So, one day a fake monk came into town and within no time, he was introduced with the notion of fame as monks already had a good rep in town but with time people started realizing that he was not the real deal, so they switched back to their original monk for spiritual guidance. This infuriated him and so, he brewed an evil scheme against the innocent monk!

He hid his silver ring inside the real monk’s house and claimed that he stole the ring. Well, that created a divide between people as some would favour the real monk while others would be in doubt. And, so they asked for an evidence, both the monks agreed but what the real monk did not expect was, finding a silver ring in his house! He kept denying but nobody believed as the evidence suggested otherwise, and so, he was dismissed from his duties and the fake monk lived happily ever after!

Yep! That’s what happens for putting too much faith in humanity!

As you might have already guessed, I made that story up. But fam trust me, that hits close to home for many people, especially if you have an online forum for your company.

Yes, I am talking about fake reviews, the bad ones, never encountered the good ones though (of course, it would not hurt if they were good, pfft!).

As a pro in receiving fake reviews and still thriving, let me go straight to the steps you have to take to deal with such vain attempts from competitors.

1.      DO NOT PANIC!

In this time of cutthroat competition and most of the people relying on online reviews before purchasing your product or service, getting a bad review, either fake or not, can be a real blow to the productivity of the firm. 

Before you start panicking or creating havoc by replying in haste letting it consume your potential, just a pro tip, BREATHE!

It’s just a comment, not the end of the world or your business in any way and there are many ways to tackle and solve this mini problem.

2.      RESPOND TO EVERY REVIEW:

A very good strategy that successful businesses are adopting is, responding to all reviews. This does not only give a positive, considerate image of the firm but also engages customers and gives them a reliability that you are approachable. You can also add some marketing of your services or your products and that attracts more customers!

3.      GOOGLE HELP:

Okay, if this works, congrats!

I have seen many cases where one of the top contributors of Google were able to get their point across and so the review was removed. How they did it?

1.      Flag the review.

2.      Try to compile all the “evidence” against the review.

3.      Request Google, call them if necessary.

Sometimes, you only get a one star review without any comment and that’s the hardest to be taken down because there is no way to prove. What to do in such cases? The next two steps can be very effective in such scenarios.

HOW TO FLAG THE REVIEW:

Suspected fake Google reviews can be reported to Google by anybody. Suspect reviews can be flagged to Google by choosing ‘Flag as inappropriate’ from the options next to the review. In Google Maps, this will appear when you click the three dots on the right-hand side of each review.

For Google searches, this will appear as a small flag icon next to the star rating. 

From here, you will be taken to a page where you can report a policy violation. Here you will be asked to provide your email address, and to specify a violation type.

Once submitted, Google will review your complaint and will contact you if they require further information or have feedback to share. This does not happen often, though.

USEFUL TIP

Google is more likely to take action against a review that has been flagged more than once. If you are able to, you should request a number of colleagues to take the same action. There is no guarantee your complaint will be reviewed, but those with greater numbers will take priority. 

HOW TO REPORT FAKE REVIEWS TO GOOGLE SMALL BUSINESS SUPPORT:

Reporting suspect reviews to Google Small Business support should be your next port of call if your initial flagging did not work. The response you get from flagging a review shouldn’t take more than a week. If, after this time, the review is still there, it’s time to contact Google My Business. You can do this by following these steps.

1. Log into your Google My Business page here: https://www.google.com/business/
2. Navigate to the Reviews section
3. Click the home menu, and then select Support
4. You can then select a preferred method of contact, either Phone or Email
5. You will be asked to fill in a few pieces of information. Attach a screenshot example of the suspect review and offer any further information you feel may be helpful.
6. Submit your complaint. You should hear back within 2 working days.

4.      HOW TO RESPOND:

The way you respond is the core to your customer service and consequently your business. Your response should be efficient, pertinent and relevant to the problem, precise and clear.

It should not be some gibberish for customers to do their thesis work on. Also, it should not be too long for other customers to lose interest before you make a point, it should be short and relevant.

If the comment is fake, you can directly say, “ Sorry [insert_name], I believe you left this review for a different company, we never worked together. Have a great day!”

Or, if you want to make it a bit more pleasant, you can respond, “Thank you for leaving a review. We take feedback very seriously; however, I’m afraid we can find no record any customers matching your name or details. We would greatly appreciate the opportunity to help you wherever we can – if you have had a bad experience with our service, please contact us on [insert customer service email]”.

For one star reviews, request a concrete reason, “Thank you for leaving a rating. We’re sorry to hear you had a bad experience; however, we cannot offer any assistance or resolution without details about what you did not like. If you wish, please contact us on [insert customer service email] to discuss your issue and we will try our best to help resolve it for you.”

You can also offer a 100 percent refund as it will not cost you anything as the comment is fake and 100% of 0 is 0.

A cool way would be adding a marketing line like, “By the way, if you want to check out our new service, you can join here (add the page link) and become a real customer….”

5.      ENDING UP AS THE MONK? BURY THE COMMENT:

The best defence is a good offense regarding negative reviews. If you consistently get "review farming" from your happy customers, the 2-3 negative reviews will not ding your rating as much if you "pillow" them with the positive reviews.

Consider bolstering your existing reviews. You can do this by directing website users to the Google reviews platform, whether as part of your website customer journey, or as part of your email marketing strategy.

Generating more positive reviews will increase your aggregated score, in addition to pushing negative reviews further down the list where fewer users are likely to see them.

To be honest, getting a five star seems too good to be true, so a rating between 4 and 5 is ideal. Have you had an experience with fake negative reviews on Google? If so, I’d love to hear about it and how you dealt with it, so please leave a comment.

Hope this article helped you decide your next steps. If you have any queries, we at ONE IP INTERNATIONAL are always there for your help. Contact our team for any kind of assistance. We would be glad to be of any service!