A large percentage of people already know that negative reviews on Facebook or Google reviews can have devastating consequences on your business. Remove negative Google reviews and preserve your online reputation with our guide.
If you are a small business owner on the internet you should know that online reviews will create a large part of your reputation management. The referrals and good marketing strategy will boost the number of your customers. Online business reviews will actually create one essential pillar of digital marketing and for some online businesses, they can be a crucial part of their marketing.
There are a lot of online businesses with a big number of positive reviews, however, you should know that only one powerfully written negative review can have a big impact on your business.
If we go by statistics we have some interesting facts that will probably take your attention if you own or you have plans to start an online business.
- Some statistics have shown that 88% of consumers trust online reviews more than personal recommendations they may receive.
- If you are getting a lot of negative reviews this can result in turning your customers to your competitors for their business needs.
- 94% of consumers say that a bad review has convinced them to avoid a business location.
As we already said, everyone that has an online business or has any plans to start should know that consumer reviews are a very important part of your business.
You don’t want a couple of bad google reviews to bring down everything you have worked so hard to achieve. We made this article in order to help you deal with bad online reviews, but also with fake reviews and spam. We will also talk about how to “delete” google reviews or a single google review in case you see spam. There is some procedure for these fake google reviews and it is a really simple procedure to delete google reviews that are fake.
First, we will talk about the impact that bad reviews can have on your business and why people leave negative/bad reviews. After you understand better the downsides of these reviews we will come up with some solutions that you can implement and strengthen the bond with your customers, keep your shop rating on a high level, and remove negative Google reviews.
Table of Contents
Google Reviews and their impact on your Business
One thing that can bring you a great amount of business value and can also help you generate a lot more leads is Google reviews.
You may think about these Google reviews as an additional factor when it comes to your SEO (search engine optimization) ranking. Local SEO factor will remain an integral part of your digital marketing efforts, however, Google review will go beyond the part when you are just trying to drive up more traffic and lift your articles on better search positions.
It doesn’t always matter if you are getting a good or bad review. Feedback will be feedback (it counts) and those reviews posted can also play important role in customer relationship management. You should know that these, good or bad reviews will help you develop your service and your product and also it will improve your relationship with your customers.
Potential customers are using the reviews for a certain business so they can better understand your idea and your business.
It is almost impossible for your google business profile to have a lot of positive 5-star reviews and not to be under the lens. People nowadays are trying to get positive reviews in many different ways and not all of them are 100% legal.
It is a very normal thing for the people (customers) to search for a negative review or bad review and on the positive side, that will bring authenticity to your online business and for you as a business owner. However, if you have a lot of bad reviews that will definitely cause a lot of problems for your business. Because of that reason you should be very careful and try to keep balance when it comes to positive and negative reviews.
At the end of the day, all of those businesses are built by a human and it is normal “not to be perfect”, to have some slips and few negative reviews.
Why Consumers Leave Negative Reviews?
Over the last 10 years, customer reviews on Google and other websites like TripAdvisor, YellowPages, and Yelp became one powerful force in the online business world.
Many of those reviews are posted from customers and their personal experiences. A positive experience will most probably encourage the customer to leave a positive review about your business, while an unhappy customer who had a bad experience will probably post a negative Google review.
Having a lot of negative reviews especially when they are followed by bad comments can have profound effects on customers’ perceptions of your business.
You will need to go slowly and patiently with every customer and review because if you get a lot of them, your brand’s online reputation will be at risk. You need to keep this in mind because we already mentioned that a high percentage of customers look and trust in those online reviews more than a personal recommendation.
Don’t put yourself in a situation when you will ignore a negative review and then waste your time on the internet learning how to delete google reviews, or how to remove google reviews.
Fake and misleading reviews
Negative reviews posted are not always coming from customers with a bad experience. If you own an online business you will come across fake google review or misleading reviews, false accusations that are usually left by disgruntled former employees, your competitors, or those who are just envious of your success and want to pick on you.
All of those reviews that are fake don’t really stand their ground. However, they still can represent a great risk for your business reputation, and customers that will read these reviews can easily change their minds and go to your competitors.
You will need to learn how to deal with them and you will probably search, how to delete a google review or how to compose a legal removal request.
In continuation of this article, we will provide you with some solutions when it comes to negative or fake reviews, how to deal with them, and also how to remove them.
How To Professionally Respond To Negative Reviews?
From the moment you start a business that can be rated, you should know there will be negative reviews and that is a fact. The important thing is to properly handle this kind of review and to detect, flag, and report fake reviews.
For you, we have some great tips that will help you handle your customers with bad experiences very professionally and bring back their confidence in your business.
1. Stay calm and evaluate the problem
A real customer service agent who knows well his products and delivery options will be able to professionally deal with this kind of customer and negative reviews.
Without any panic, you should evaluate the problem and come out with a fast solution. Short and precise conversations with your customer will help you figure out the problem and help them out.
Fake reviews
Always remember to check if some of the reviews are fake because there are always some competitors who will try to ruin your reputation and take over your customers.
You should check your customer records and see if that review matches with any of them. If you don’t have a record of interaction with that profile you are probably seeing a fake review and only reviews of this kind can be reported to Google and deleted.
2. Always respond professionally and show empathy
You will need to approach calmly to a customer who left a negative review, ask as many questions as you can in order to understand the problem and resolve it fast enough.
With this approach, the customer and any other person who will read your discussion especially if it’s in the comment section will understand that you really care about your business, your products, and especially your precious customers.
Short questions (in order to understand the issue), fast solutions will raise the confidence of your customers and will bring great benefits for you and your business.
Please note that this kind of professional approach is not only suggested for customers who leave negative reviews and have a bad experience but also for customers who leave positive reviews and had a great experience in doing business with you.
Replying to positive reviews is also a very important thing and will encourage the customer to come and buy again but additionally will encourage new customers to start using your services or buy your product once they see how professionally you deal with everyone.
Just be sure to respond to these reviews in a positive and non-confrontational way. Always remember that these negative reviews don’t originate (in most cases) from customer problems but from something that you or your employees may have done to make the customer experience less than positive.
3. Put a little marketing when you are replying to negative reviews
There are some phrases that people usually use when replying to specific reviews that are left by their customers. As we already said those are the words that can bring back the confidence in your customers and can additionally make some good advertisement of your business.
There is an order when you are approaching a specific review and we have some examples for you.
Apologize and bring the customer on the right path
You will need to be confident and positive and approach with something like this:
“Hello (name), we are very sorry to hear about your bad experience, we care about our customers and want to keep them happy. Can you provide us with details so we can look into your problem and try to resolve it? Please send us a message with your issue and we will take care of it”
When you are trying to raise the confidence in your customers and also want to add a little bit of marketing when replying, you should come up with something like this:
“Hello, we are very sorry to hear you had issues with our service, we understood the problem and we will sort it out in no time”.
Meanwhile, if a refund is a necessary step up with confidence when replying:
” You should know that we are offering a full refund to every customer that happened to have a bad experience as an apology. We are working hard to keep our customers satisfied and every customer is valuable for us”.
4. Try to move the conversation offline
You don’t really want to play ping-pong in the comment section with an upset customer. You should always look for an option to bring that conversation offline.
For example, you can offer the customer to discuss with you over the phone or in-person (if possible). At the end of the day, it doesn’t have to be offline, you can continue your discussion by email or even skype.
If you are feeling comfortable try to communicate with your customer like that, resolve his problem and bring him back the confidence in your business.
5. Turn the whole situation upside-down
If you successfully resolve the customer problem, that is a great starting point for you to turn around the whole situation.
Once you fix everything and you are sure that the customer is satisfied now, you can feel free to ask him to remove the negative comment or (even better) to raise the rating to 4 or 5 stars. That will be an example for other customers that you care about them.
Removing negative or fake reviews on Google
Here you have a couple of steps that you can follow in order to successfully deal with fake reviews.
- First, you need to understand which reviews can be reported for removal.
- Some of the reviews can be removed from Google search or from Google Maps. Open Google Maps, open your Business Profile, then click on your profile image.
- Then click “Reviews”. If you’re using a mobile, just tap on “Reviews”. All your reviews will be displayed with this option.
- Once you locate the fake review that you want to report click the three vertical dots in the upper right corner to select “Report review”.
- If there is a specific user that is posting fake reviews and trying to bring down your business you can also report individual users. Just click on their user’s name, click the three vertical dots, and select “Report profile“.
The whole process of deleting fake reviews from Google is very easy and won’t take much time. Reviews marked as fake and removed from your account will no longer be a threat to your business and reputation.
Bonus tip – Always ask for more reviews from satisfied customers
One of the best things you can do is to ask for more reviews from satisfied customers. You can use your social media platforms to ask for feedback, also try to generate a Google review link and send it through email or even showcase it on your website.
The more chances to get positive reviews, the better will be for the perception of your business and customer relations in the long run.
Conclusion
Having great skills when managing reviews and staying on the top of your SEO strategy are crucial for small business owners. Once you learn how to deal with them easy it will bring you great benefits and will make a strong foundation for growing and managing your online reputation.
Remember to always keep an eye on your search results, star reviews, and mostly the negative ones. When your customers see or experience how good you are dealing with positive and negative reviews they will have more confidence in working with you and your business will be the one who is winning.
