In the world of online businesses, everything posted on your website and social media accounts will be your road to success or the reason for your failure. Online reviews have the biggest impact on your business because they are what most of your future customers will base their opinions on.
Too many negative reviews can do serious damage to your reputation and, eventually, to the business itself. However, you can control your online reputation by doing something about your problem with negative reviews.
In some cases, not all of the reviews you get are real. There may be spammers or competitors out there who want to harm your business by planting these negative reviews. That is why you need to know how to spot negative reviews and how to deal with them effectively.
How to Spot Fake Reviews
1. Vague and Lacks Detail
Fake reviews often lack detail and use general terms about their experience with the product. If the reviews you are getting have started to become vague and mainly focus on how your products “suck” without giving a specific reason why, there is a huge chance they are fake.
2. Uses First-Person Pronouns
Most of the time, when reviewers want to sound sincere, they try too hard by using too many first-person pronouns like “I” and “me”. This may be the case with most of the reviews you get, but try to keep a lookout for the types of reviews that use first-person pronouns a little too much.
3. The Reviews are Only Either One Star or Five Stars
A lot of fake reviews only aim to either dramatically increase or diminish the average rating of a product or company. If a review is extremely negative, you can trust that it is a fake one.
4. The Reviewer Has a Suspicious History
If you get more than one negative review from a single user, you can check their account and see if they have posted reviews for other products. If the reviewer doesn’t have any other reviews, has too many reviews, or uses the same review for other products, it is surely a fake account and is just spreading negative reviews to try and bring your average rate down.
How to Deal with Fake Negative Reviews Online
Now that you know how to spot the fake reviews from the real ones, it is time to learn how to deal with these fake negative reviews:
1. Don’t Act Right Away
Upon realizing that someone is trying to sabotage your online reputation, it is normal to feel angry. But it is very important to take a step back, pause, and think about your next step calmly. Always remember that you have to act professionally and think clearly before you act.
2. Get the Review Removed
The first step of digital reputation management is to get rid of all the negative reviews on the internet. Although there is no guarantee that the fake review will be taken down because the review sites simply cannot remove all the negative reviews you want to get removed, there are still other sites who can help you eliminate the fake negative reviews about your business like Facebook, Yelp, and Google.
3. Respond to the Negative Review Publicly
Responding to the negative reviews you will receive may not be on the top of your list, but it is still an important step in order to control your reputation online. When the customers see you respond to the negative reviews, they will see that you are open to improvement and may lead them to try your products out.
Before you start responding to negative reviews, draft a polite response that addresses the negative points of the review. Be professional and don’t say anything negative about the reviewer because this may offend other potential customers. You can also invite the reviewer to contact you to resolve the issue and show your customers that you care.
4. Attract More Positive Reviews
One negative review can have a huge impact on your business if it is the only review you have. But if you have hundreds of positive reviews, your potential customers will not pay any attention to one negative review. That is why you have to focus on getting more positive reviews as much as you can.
You can partner up with online systems like Advanced Digital Media Services to handle all the digital reputation management tasks for you. We can help you deal with all the fake negative reviews and gain more positive reviews in the process.
All you need to do is have a quick call with us and set up a meeting to discuss everything you need to control your online reputation. You don’t have to worry about the reviews, because we are experts in reputation management and we can handle everything for you.
