These days, Google Reviews are impossible to ignore. While they can be a company's biggest asset, if your business has any online presence at all, a bad review will unfortunately land on your virtual doorstep at some stage.
Despite doing a great job at putting your customers first, building a reputation that you're proud of and delivering a high-quality service that exceeds expectations, unhappy customers are one of life's great certainties, a bit like death and taxes.
But never fear! We're going to show you how to manage both negative and fake reviews, turning lemons into lemonade, frowns upside down, and unhappy chappies into repeat customers and ultimately, cheerleaders for your business.
A Google Review is way more than just a throwaway comment on the internet. They significantly affect your business's reputation and, ultimately, your overall appeal to customers. Here's how:
Like you, Google has a reputation to uphold. To maintain it's reputation as the go-to search engine, its algorithms search for fresh, positive and relevant content. User-generated content (like reviews, Q&As and so on) help keep your Google Business Profile active and engaging, impacting where your business appears on the search engine results page (SERP).
Potential customers heavily rely on reviews to make purchasing decisions. A low star rating or a series of 1-star reviews will often, quite understandably, steer a customer to the competition across the street! By the same token, a solid rating and a tonne of positive feedback can be the reason why a potential customer calls you first.
Positive reviews serve as a morale booster for your employees, knowing they're on a winning team. On the flip side, a bad online reputation can be a big de-motivator for people who want to be associated with reputable businesses.
Additionally, if your Google Reviews and star rating indicate you’re the best in town, they're a super cost-effective and influential advertising campaign to attract high-quality recruits. How good?!
Is your first instinct to simply ignore a bad review? Or worse, disregard your Google Reviews altogether and leave your online reputation up to chance?
While it can be tempting, please don’t do this!
Overlooking a negative Google Review can have far-reaching, long-lasting consequences. If you choose not to act, it will ultimately signal a lack of concern for customer feedback. A lack of response to a review breaks trust and confidence among existing clients, future customers and staff.
Negative feedback that needs to be addressed can linger, and in this digital age, where online reputation holds huge weight, neglecting bad reviews can damage your brand image, customer base, and bottom line.
When you get a minute, check out this article highlighting why local businesses need to prioritise Google Reviews rather than a ‘she’ll be right’ approach.
Before you get behind the keyboard and follow the urge to write an emotionally charged reply, take a minute to read over the review. The aim is to determine whether the review is genuine or has been left by a make-believe customer looking to damage your online reputation.
There have been cases of disgruntled former employees or jealous competitors leaving damaging reviews. Once you have a clear idea of the source and determined its authenticity, you’ll be ready to take action. Here are the things to look out for:
Genuine reviews often include specific experiences, while fake ones might be overly positive or negative without substance.
This is another way to identify whether the reviewer is genuine, a keyboard warrior who seems to be unhappy with everything and everyone, or whether they are a fake account that has been set up for sabotage.
Pro tip: You can check a reviewer's history by clicking on the review count directly under their name and above the star rating they have left you.
Jot down the reviewer's name and cross-check it with your records to see if they have been a customer in the past.
Just remember, a customer must have a Google Account to leave a review. Some people may have multiple Google Accounts with nicknames or aliases, so while you may not recognise them, don’t be too quick to reply with “it’s a fake, it’s a fugazi”.
Encountering a fake review can be frustrating, but don't worry, we've got your back! There’s a solution for everything. Here’s a great approach:
“Hey there,
I just saw your review about [service].
We're a bit puzzled, as we can't match your experience with any of our customer records. We're all ears to sort this out and make things right, so if you could drop us a quick line with some more info [phone or email] —like when you visited or what you tried—it would be super helpful.
We're serious about giving everyone a top-notch service, so we're eager to chat”.
Check out this article for step-by-step instructions on how to flag a fake review.
Pro tip: The best way to do this is to contact Google directly via their support line, which you can find here.
After you’ve taken a deep breath and ‘reviewed the review,’ it’s time to craft a strategic response and turn the ship around. Remember, it’s not just the reviewer you’re responding to; your potential customers are also reading these reviews and your replies.
For more in-depth help and examples of how to respond to negative reviews, check out this article.
After you've undertaken operation 'damage control' and resolved the issue raised in a negative review, it's a good time to consider reaching out to the customer to ask them to update or remove their review.
This may not be possible in every negative review case - You have to be sure you've properly addressed their concern and have implemented steps to prevent the issue from happening again, but we find that more often than not, a customer is eager to share their story of how you turned a bad experience into a great one.
A great way to approach this is via private email or phone call.
Begin by expressing your gratitude for their feedback and sharing your sincere apology for any inconvenience they experienced. Highlight the steps you took to fix the problem and explain how their input helped you improve your service and set up checks and balances to prevent the same issue from cropping up again for future customers.
Politely ask if they would consider updating their review to reflect the positive changes made, emphasizing that their revised review can potentially guide other potential customers towards a better experience.
By approaching the request with humility, gratitude, and a focus on the customer's experience, you increase the likelihood of turning a negative review into a positive testament to your commitment to quality and customer satisfaction.
Just a reminder, Google Review Policy prohibits incentivising the removal of reviews. This means you can highlight what changes you've made and ask them to update or remove their review to reflect their full experience, but you can't offer freebies, discounts or other incentives in exchange for the removal of a review.
The good news is it's not all doom and gloom! A negative review can be used to your advantage if you stay in the right frame of mind. Here are the things to remember:
The thing about reviews is that a single bad review in a sea of 100 or more positive reviews will make little difference to your business. If the masses are vouching for your outstanding service, readers are likely to assume that the problem rests more with the patron rather than your business.
A strong suite of 5-star reviews will improve your SEO, woo potential customers, impress job hunters, and eclipse that negative review, so it's almost impossible to find. That way, you can get on with what you do best, knowing you've got a tonne of positive reviews working hard to build and maintain your online reputation.
Don't know where to start when it comes to building your Google Reviews? We're here to lend a hand. If you're keen to get started building an online reputation that reflects your real-life excellence, we can help. See how betterbunch works, or book a demo if you're interested in learning how we might be able to grow your Google reviews.