How To Respond To Fake Reviews of Your Business?

 

Online reviews are an extension of traditional "word-of-mouth" marketing. An individual purchases a product or service and shares their experience with friends. According to studies, 95% of shoppers read an internet review before deciding to buy. And 94% of buyers said an internet review persuaded them to shun a brand or organization. If you receive too many unfavorable reviews, your reputation will suffer, and your business will suffer.

 

Even well-managed business has bad days, so the odd nasty internet review is unavoidable.

 

But what about false and negative reviews? These could be aggravating, frustrating, and detrimental to your bottom line.

What is Review Management?

Review management is the practice of monitoring internet reviews about your company on numerous websites. This is done to guarantee that you can carry out your review response plan, address customer complaints as they emerge, and rapidly eliminate fake reviews before they cause problems.

 

All firms, irrespective of size, should practice review management. Your review management approach may vary depending on your company's objectives, but some standard procedures include responding to reviews, detecting and eliminating false ones.

Benefits of Review Management

It enables you to understand what is being written about your company online and to intervene in problems as they arise. Consumers who read reviews will notice that you are paying attention to what is being said, that you care about their experiences, and that you take the time to make things right.

 

Given the prevalence of bogus reviews, management ensures that your consumers only see authentic reviews to assist them in making decisions, whether they are excellent or negative. Furthermore, 9 out of 10 people read reviews before visiting or purchasing from a business; thus, ignoring the sites where people talk about you will hurt your customer acquisition.

4 Ways Fake Reviews Can Affect Your Business

The advantages of online reviews are well recognized, yet convincing customers to post a review may be a difficult task. In general, consumers do not offer feedback unless they are dissatisfied. Many companies prefer to outsource false reviews in order to boost their star rating. This may seem like a good idea at the moment, but it's critical to understand how fake reviews may harm your brand,

 

1. Fake reviews can break customers’ trust.
2. You could get fined for fake reviews.
3. Your local search rankings and traffic may fall.
4. You could seem to be too good to be true.

5 Ways to Spot a Fake Review

1. The Review Does Not Contain Any Details

It's difficult to describe using a product or having an experience if you haven't really had it. Fake reviews frequently provide a broad idea rather than concentrating on specifics.

 

Fake reviews commonly use clichés like "This product transformed my life!" Because most people don't care that much about random things on the internet, fakers may feel compelled to embellish their reviews when it's not genuine.

 

"I was feeling low when my cat ran away, then I stumbled into discovering this product and can't believe how fantastic it is!" is an example of a similar issue. Personal stories appeal to your emotions, making you more likely to purchase something than you would otherwise. The focus of good reviews is on the product, not the reviewer.

2. Immaculate or Poor Grammar

A genuine review will appear to be written by a regular individual. It may have a few minor grammatical errors, but it should be clear and concise without seeming too formal. When the writing quality is on the extreme, it could be an indicator of fraudulent reviews.

 

If someone was paid to make the product sound as good as possible, you could identify it by how well-polished the review is. Look for words like "This software seamlessly interacts with the app ecosystem that my workflow requires," which seem like they came from a product description or a press release.

3. Extreme Negative or Positive Reviews

An overly positive review indicates either blind loyalty to the brand or that the reviewer has been compensated or benefited from it. Even if their overall opinion is positive, people will generally identify some flaws in a formal review. It's not helpful to say it's "wonderful" without explanation.

 

On the other hand, a fully bad review isn't going to benefit you much. People who slam a product may be attempting to harm the company's reputation as a result of a bad experience with it. Instead of posting sweeping angry comments, someone who truly wants to provide a one-star review will focus on the specific concerns they had with it.

4. Exaggerated Humor

Lots of people deal with reviews as an area to check their comedic skills. Sometimes, funny reviews may be welcome on some product listings. But often, humor and sarcasm could make it hard to inform whether or not a review is sincerely being humorous or simply writing a fake outline to get a laugh.

 

As a preferred rule, forget about reviews that do not speak about the product. More useful critiques might not wander away into tangents like these.

How to Respond to Fake Reviews?

It may be frustrating, but there is no guarantee that Google (or any other review site) will remove the fake review you are trying to remove. If it's too easy to delete a review, people who want to suppress honest negative feedback can easily abuse this process. With that in mind, follow the suggestions below to address any fake or fraudulent reviews you may have received.

 

Make sure your review violates your site's posted content policy. Here are some guidelines for the best review sites: Google, Facebook, and Yelp.

 

1. Confirm that the review you received is fake. The general characteristics of fake reviews are:

-        The reviewer's name does not appear anywhere in the customer database.

-        The review mentions services and products that you do not offer.

-        The review does not provide comments or explanations about their experience. 

 

2. Reply to the reviews to address the issues raised and reassure other customers you care about. And ensure to maintain a polite and professional tone in your response, because even if the review is fake your other customers will read your response to gauge your brand.

 

Review response example: "Thank you for submitting your review. We apologize for the inconvenience. Please contact us at <phone number> to provide details so we can address your concerns and resolve them. Thank you.”

 

P.S. Here are a couple of reviews you might find useful - 15 Review Response Templates to Quickly Reply to Online Reviews

 

3. Report the review from the review site. Google can report the review as inappropriate. Find the rating and click the small flag icon next to the star rating. On Facebook, businesses need to provide feedback on reviews. To do this, find the review and click the 3-dot menu button in the top right corner. Find the review on Yelp, click the flag icon, and select “Report Review” to report a review.

 

And that’s how you respond to fake or negative reviews online - state the fact, be polite and make sure not to escalate the issue any further.

Conclusion

Managing reviews across different channels can be challenging, and with the addition of scouting out fake reviews, it almost seems impossible. That’s why businesses use tools like SimplyReviews to manage all their review from different channels from one centralized inbox. Businesses can manage and organize their reviews by sentiment, rating and much more making it easier to spot reviews that might be fake.

 

The better you manage your fake and negative reviews, the better it is going to look for your business!

 

To know more, visit: https://simplify360.com/ or call on +91 11410 91911 or +91 9667559647.