Interacting with review sites is a fact of life for any consumer-facing business. Review sites shape how customers decide where to eat dinner, which shop to visit, and what experience to try. Even if your business doesn’t have a website (it should), you will likely still have pages on several review sites—whether you created them or not. Gone are the days when professional food and entertainment reviewers had a monopoly on taste. These sites have taken that power for themselves by crowdsourcing opinions.
Online Reputation
It can be scary to know that your online reputation is inextricably linked to strangers’ opinions. It’s easy to imagine someone holding an unreasonable grudge against your business and launching an online campaign to “review bomb” you. Whether it’s an isolated bad experience or an accusation against an employee that has nothing to do with the business, it doesn’t take much to incite the mob.
We deal with it regularly. Aggrieved parties usually aren’t interested in apologies or explanations. They just want revenge for a perceived slight and don’t respond well to new information. In some cases, most of the negative reviewers in these scenarios have never interacted with your business—they’re just following the herd. Keep in mind that these people spend only a few seconds leaving a bad review, but it can cost your business much more.
Thankfully, you can mitigate the effects of negative attention through a sound internal review-site policy.
Here are some tips to guard against and recover from review bombing:
Build a Strong Foundation
It’s harder to tear down a strong reputation than a weak one, so the better you manage your business’s online presence, the more resilient you’ll be to negative reviews. This process starts with controlling where and how your business appears online, as much as possible.
Get Google
Start by getting a Google My Business (GMB) account. It offers a ton of benefits, starting with SEO; Google likes its own products, after all. Your GMB profile is the first thing people see when they Google you, so fill it out completely. Add your location, phone number, hours, website, and menu. It will serve as a one-stop shop for people researching your business. It’s also where people will review you.
While you’re building your Google presence, get an AdWords account too. You don’t even have to buy ads–the point is to access Google’s support services. If you’re having a problem with reviews, call your ad account’s support number and ask to be transferred to GMB support. They’ll do it, no questions asked, and you’ll be able to talk to a real person about your problem.
Because Google reviews appear in search results, they are the most important to monitor. Before anything bad happens, build that five-star reputation! Ask customers, either verbally or through signs and discounts, to support you by leaving a review. Respond individually to reviewers, thanking those who rate you highly and sincerely reaching out to those who don’t. Goodwill has inertia, just like bad faith, so use it to your advantage. The better your rating and the more reviews you have, the harder it will be for people to bring it down.
What To Do About Bad Reviews
If you’re facing a flood of unfounded negative reviews, report them all. Google’s policies are clear: if a review indicates the reviewer didn’t actually experience your business or is meant to harass or demean, it will be removed. To speed things up, call Google support and explain the issue. That’ll draw their attention and may expedite removal, especially for more egregious reviews. One unfortunate caveat, however: Google will not remove one-star reviews with no text, since it can’t tell whether the person had an authentic experience unless hundreds appear in response to the same article or incident.
What About Other Sites?
We haven’t mentioned Yelp, TripAdvisor, or other platforms yet, and for good reason: Google matters far more. Yelp is the most prominent alternative site, but you’re better off avoiding it. Although they deny it, Yelp has strong pay-for-play elements and heavily favors advertisers in support and search results. If you don’t have a Yelp profile for your business, keep it that way–you can’t leave nasty reviews on a nonexistent page. By limiting how many places people can review bomb you while getting maximum value from the sites where you do have a presence, you retain more control.
If you’re a retail business, you probably have a Facebook page, another place where people can recommend you–or not. Thankfully, the steps for Facebook are similar to those for Google: create an ad account, report harassment, get in touch, and stay vigilant.
Weather the Storm
Because some reviews slip through the cracks in Google’s or Facebook’s review policies, a review-bombing incident will likely harm your overall rating. The steps outlined above will mitigate that effect but can’t prevent it entirely. Unfortunately, the online mob has considerable power. After the storm passes, the best thing you can do is redouble your efforts to encourage real customers to leave positive reviews. If the incident was clearly not your fault, you may be surprised by how much support your loyal customers show.
Review sites are a double-edged sword. They can showcase your excellence to the world, but they can also harm you if someone targets your profile with malicious intent. Controlling your presence, staying vigilant, and promoting positive reviews will help protect you from review bombing and make your business more attractive and accessible.
To learn how Tucker/Hall can help you fight review bombing and other online crises, contact Theresa Collington at tcollington@tuckerhall.com or tel: 727.434.1196.
