Hy all ! I want to know how do you handle fake bad reviews on Google MyBusiness. How do i know are fake : name/happenings described in the reviews, are not in our books. One even mistake our business with other. I have flagged the 3 reviews (all 1 star), but nothing yet from Google. I know, we need to give good services for clients, we need to get more positive reviews, but, i neeed to clear the fake ones. Any ideas?
You can try to identify any lack of service that happened in past. Do you see the date of reviews posted their ? What I believe you need to reach those clients directly and request that to remove those reviews. I am not sure if Google will respond or they will take time. Best is to investigate and identify the user/client.
Stop worrying about it. If you are focusing on "fake" negative reviews then you clearly aren't doing enough to get positive reviews. You need a reputation strategy. Do you respond to the positive reviews? Do you respond to the negative reviews to address concerns? If you can't respond then simply move pass it. Negative reviews of a product or service are expected by consumers in 2018. In fact, if you don't have a poor review something is fishy to the average savvy person. Don't focus on the things you can't control... focus on what you can control... like providing a positive experience for someone to leave positive reviews.
Fake comments are usually made from fake accounts. You have to justify that in your comments/blog section. Sometime these people make a fake account, make 1 or 2 fake comments and than forget. This expose them. You can also contact them but I don't think its going to worth your effort. Just trace them down and expose them. But try you don't have to defame anyone. Just protect your version. I am the person who always look for reviews and it matters how a company respond to negative or fake comments.
Since you have flagged those fake bad reviews, Google will first check the reviews and then respond you back. You can't remove them by yourself.
Thanks everyone for the responses. I have talked about 5 times with Google. I hope they will fix this.
Try to identife the IP adresess of the users that left the negative reviews. Perhaps, they left it from the same computer IP, using VPN or somebody ask to leave bad reviews. Everything is possible, because your competitors play dirty games. Can you delete the reviews? Sry for the stupid questions, but I used Google Mybusiness only several times and don't have enough experience.
Unfortunately fake reviews are always gonna happen. If the one star review is with a comment I advise my clients to always respond courteously and say something like this: “I'm sorry that you had a bad experience with us. Upon receiving your review, we immediately checked our records to identify you so we could investigate the issue. We did not, however, find your name in any of our records. Nevertheless, we take great pride in our customer service and satisfaction so we'd like to put this right. Please contact [your name] at [your office number / email], and I’d be happy to address the issues contained in your review.” Flagging it to Google won't always do any good, but you can also try sending messages to @GoogleMyBusiness on Facebook or @GoogleMyBiz on Twitter. From a reputation management point of view a mix of good and bad reviews is nothing to worry about, but if they are potentially damaging the best thing to do is bury them under a mountain of good honest 4-5 star reviews from real satisfied customers.
I managed to resolve this issue with Google directly. I have called them and told them that we cannot find the customers in our records, that we can show them all the records of our clients. Also, i told them that if they don`t remove the reviews, after we propose them to show all the customers records, we will sue them, because is an image problem, that affects our business. After about 10 calls (more than 3 hours of talking) and about 5-7 emails, they removed all the reviews.
You can try to somehow report those accounts if you believe they are fake. If they have only one review on their count, which is yours, then I guess you can report them. Still, I'd recommend responding to those reviews and showing that you actually care about your customers.