False negative Google review posted by local competitor employee

[MyTG]

I had a one star Google review notification arrive this evening. I didn't recognize the customer name so I looked at my electronic records and realized he was never a customer of mine. I looked at his Facebook page and read that he works at another local computer repair shop. I looked at his Google+ page and saw that he also gave another 1 star review to another local computer repair shop within the past week. He gave a five star review to the computer shop that he works at. I know that I should ask customers for reviews, but I never have so his is currently the only review. Same for the other business that he left a negative review for. He didn't say anything other than leaving the one star review. I did post a brief reply basically indicating that he was never a customer and that he worked for a local competitor and asked for the false negative review to be removed. I would appreciate any feedback anyone might leave here. Thanks in advance!

 

[Cody Shepherd]

In my experience, reviews often influence people's choices greatly. Unfortunately, with that comes potential issues like the one you're dealing with. The best way to combat this is to encourage other clients to leave positive reviews for you. A 1 star review is much less significant if it is amongst a multitude of 4+ star reviews. When I first started, I offered first-time clients a $5 rebate for writing a review and allowing me to post it on my website. It helps.

 

[MyTG]

Thanks for the feedback. I politely spoke with my competitor today and they had the negative review removed within a couple of hours.

 

[MDD1963]

Thanks for the feedback. I politely spoke with my competitor today and they had the negative review removed within a couple of hours.

It's pretty darn low.....; it is also stupid to allow it to be so easily traced back to them, fortunately! (It's like a robber using their paycheck to scribble the 'give me your money' note!)

Glad they removed it, however, that is ...something.

 

[Jeff Gedgaud]

My boss has a strategy for this type of spam reviews, he checks customers names against our CRM and if he cant find the name he simply states that in a reply along with an invitation to bring the device back to try and rectify the situation.

Our owner answers every review he can find which amounts to an extra star or more in many peoples opinion of us. He always answers to not confront but to try to solve the problem. This exact scenario has happened to us on a few occasions and we simply state that the customers name could not be found but if they are not satisfied with their experience they are welcome to bring the device back for us to work on and try to resolve their situation.

This is not going to happen so the issue of the unhappy customer coming back is not a worry but it does show to others that we are willing to work to resolve any problems after the customer has left and has a problem.

Our owner always answers questions and reviews with a twofold purpose, to try and resolve that customers problems or question and to show others we are willing to work and solve their problems as well.

 

[frase]

I had one once on facebook - went direct to clients house and asked her why. Client removed post swiftfullly, some ppl think they can say whatever they like online until they are face to face when reality sets in.

 

[Canadian Tech]

This exact scenario has happened to us on a few occasions and we simply state that the customers name could not be found but if they are not satisfied with their experience they are welcome to bring the device back for us to work on and try to resolve their situation.

I too have had one of those types of reviews and I do the exact same thing. I'll respond simply stating that I have no record of them being at my shop and if they're unhappy to please contact me so I can resolve the issues. Worked like a charm and the review was removed after I flagged it.

MyTG I think I know who you're talking about as it's a small town and that guy likes to run other shops down on Facebook too.

 

[gadgetfixup]

We had the same thing happen a couple years ago and it was the wife of a local competitor. One phone call explaining my next call was to my Attorney to file suit and it was gone. Local people I don't allow to libel our company. Genuine reviews I'll take, libelous by a competitor or one of their employees, no way. I'll go broke suing them if they don't remove it.

Good job contacting the competitor as they know all too well, how easy it would be for you and your friends to blow up their reviews.

 

[drnick5]

We had this happen a few years ago, reported it to google, yet the review still stands. We responded to it saying this was a local "competitor". But I had no luck in getting it taken down.

 

[vickie thivierge]

Stop taking your Google review so serious!

Every IT Business has a few negative reviews some where....as well as every business has a few negative reviews. It's part of the "you can't fix stupid" rule that we must live with. And Yes, I've had customers who we couldn't agree on something and they have posted some stupid bs about us....so what, "you can't please all the people all the time!"

Has a negative review hurt my business.....I don't think so.

A fresh negative review may drawn someone away from your business for now but in time everyone runs the circuit of computer repair shops and they all come back. It's best to focus on referrals from your customers as they will tell there friends about you. Referrals by a happy customers will always out trump a bad review 100 to 1.

Now stop your whining.... and get back to work!

 

[gadgetfixup]

I respectfully disagree. People that read reviews rarely read the good ones, they head straight to the negative ones to draw an opinion about your business. Sure if you have 100 reviews and 1 or 2 negatives, it's expected. If you only have 1 or 2 negatives you're in a world of hurt.

 

[vickie thivierge]

Let me break this down... as it has applied to me.......Most people don't even look at reviews. only a very small percentage do.

If you have several bad reviews posted in a row, it's time to find out what is going on and why are people so anger at you that they want to blast your Yelp with negative comments.

Next, you should be asking your clients to post reviews on your behalf.

and last........If someone has 2 or 3 bad reviews out of only 10 review.......you may need to change a few things quickly in the way you're working your clients and /or maybe even in the way you're running your business. People who have a good experiences at your business rarely take the time out of there busy day to log into a bunch of website to wright about there wonderful experience unless you ask them. Those who have had a bad experience will spend days finding websites that offer up a reviews in order to spared the word about there dissatisfaction.

If you really want to know if the reviews are that important to your business, start asking your customers how they found you. I think you may be surprise as to how many actually say they found you on the Internet and they picked you because of your stellar reviews. I always ask my new customers how they found of me and most of them say they saw the sign on the building.....so....don't figure!

 

[gikstar]

Let me break this down... as it has applied to me.......Most people don't even look at reviews. only a very small percentage do.

But in the OP's case, this is the only review and by a competitor... OP did not right thing and contacted the business owner. Maybe it OK in your book to allow/accept a competitor to post blatant lies, but I can say we wouldn't stand for it.
If you have a bogus review then it might now be a big deal if you have 25 - 5 Star reviews, you might let it go, but we address anything that isn't a 5 star review with the client and try to resolve it and have it changed.
We have nothing but 5 star reviews.
A number of years ago we posted a 4 star review for a competitor (a person that we use to do soldering on laptops etc). We have since changed it to a 5 star. Ours was the only review with lower that 5 stars on Yelp for him.

We don't have a storefront and a considerable % of Technibblers don't, so they rely on their reviews to bring traffic to them. Storefront owners, hopefully you have a lot more customers that it wouldn't matter but one needs to respond to each unfavorable review to show that you care about your customers needs.
We provide mostly managed services to our business clients which make up the vast majority of our clients. Even they have a tendency to look us up online to see what's happening... they can brag that they are using the highest rated Yep reviewed IT Services Company in the area and these same clients can refer other business clients to us and tell them to look us up on Yelp. By the way, we do not pay for Yelp advertising

 

[Jeff Gedgaud]

Let me break this down... as it has applied to me.......Most people don't even look at reviews. only a very small percentage do.

If you have several bad reviews posted in a row, it's time to find out what is going on and why are people so anger at you that they want to blast your Yelp with negative comments.

Next, you should be asking your clients to post reviews on your behalf.

and last........If someone has 2 or 3 bad reviews out of only 10 review.......you may need to change a few things quickly in the way you're working your clients and /or maybe even in the way you're running your business. People who have a good experiences at your business rarely take the time out of there busy day to log into a bunch of website to wright about there wonderful experience unless you ask them. Those who have had a bad experience will spend days finding websites that offer up a reviews in order to spared the word about there dissatisfaction.

If you really want to know if the reviews are that important to your business, start asking your customers how they found you. I think you may be surprise as to how many actually say they found you on the Internet and they picked you because of your stellar reviews. I always ask my new customers how they found of me and most of them say they saw the sign on the building.....so....don't figure!

I think one of the best tools in our shop is our CRM which is repairQ, it has an entry for referrals and on our work orders we ask each and every new customer how they heard about us and fill it in. We have reports now that show exactly where each new customer heard of us and a majority is from Google which means good search ranking and positive reviews or at least an active response is important.

 

[Canadian Tech]

I too would disagree with Vickie, as this isn't a case of several bad reviews but one from a competitor. I live in the same town as the OP and know for a fact that this particular shop and their employees loves to bad mouth the competition and one way they do that is with a bad Google review or a bad review on Facebook. I too have a had a bad review from this person and addressed it by simply stating that I had no record of them coming to me and perhaps they can contact me to correct the issue. The review was later taken down.

I always ask my clients how they found me and they usually reply on Google and make the comment about how good my reviews are. Oh and I always make an effort to reply to my Google reviews both good and bad.

 

[gadgetfixup]

Many know I subscribe to BrightLocal for monitoring search results. Here is what they say:

Source: http://searchengineland.com/88-consumers-trust-online-reviews-much-personal-recommendations-195803

 

[Rosco]

i had this exact same thing happen about 6 months ago. I competitor of mine wrote a bad review of me and a week later of another local computer business. Not much you can do. What i did was a bunch of client write positive reviews. I asked client that i knew would write good reviews. Some were offended for me and wrote long reviews in great detail about my service. It turned out to be a good thing. After all you will not please everyone.

I do disagree about reviews being meaningless though. I has read that most people trust reviews. Reviews mean alot. I hear from a lot of my new clients that the saw all the good reviews of my business.

 

[Diggs]

I work in a small town community and reviews carry considerable weight here. I like your info-graphic @inbargains as it shows the perception I've had for awhile now that the reviews are picking up credence as there isn't much else to vet a business that advertises on the net (or elsewhere for that matter).

 

[gadgetfixup]

To simply search the interment and find the first chart you come across and accept it as the final word on this topic is something I'd expect from my grandmother....it's on the Internet, it must be true kind of thing.

I've been a BrightLocal paid subscriber for about 3 years and over that time found they know what they're talking about. I work with SEO and ORM experts on a daily basis. If you don't want to believe experts in the local SEO industry that's your prerogative. There is really no need to insult someone that has an opinion different from yours. I stated my opinion and substantiated it with information from what many consider experts in local SEO.

I posted the source link that answers many questions you asked. I have neither the time nor patience to read an article to you. BL also offers many free webinars with industry guest experts if you want to learn a bit more about local SEO.

 

[vickie thivierge]

OH MY Gosh!!!! Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but just because they are on the internet or write a news letter doesn't make the opinion true or accurate....its simply one persons, or businesses, opinion.

I'm not a subscriber to Bright Local....never heard of the group until now....however one thing I do know about polls.....they can be bias based on who is being asked the questions and the demographic of where the poll is taken.
If I ask 100 20 years olds on a college campus a question they are going to say one thing. If I ask 100 55 year old's the same question at a AARP convention, I'm going to get a different set of answers. The problem with the chart was .....it didn't provide the supporting information on how the poll was conducted, age range and demographic....therefore.....I couldn't, in all fairness, buy into it....but you can if you want.


I'm not here to argue if someone believes in a chart or not.....the question here had to do with having found a negative review on a website about your business could be a problem. A lot of people offered excellent answers...and of course I'm the old timer here..., I've been self-employed for 30+ years.... and I didn't personally put a lot of concern into reviews on the internet....but clearly some of you do. I basically stated, If you are doing your job and offering a valued product or service, than one or two negative reviews won't have an impact on your business....and than I added..., In general..... , most people don't look at reviews until they have a problem with a business.....then they will spend hours trying to hurt you by filing out a bunch of bad reviews on several different websites. The bottom line here is people will still do business with businesses with negative reviews....and I used Disneyland as my example....not the best example I could have used....but I think I made my point.

My recommendation.....was to spend more time in building good business relationship by marketing directly for customer referrals and stop worrying about the possibility of a negative review somewhere out there on the internet.