You found a few bad reviews about your company online and now you want to combat those fake reviews with good reviews. You should but don’t use fake reviews to do so. You need to let those good reviews come in natural because fake ones are easily spotted.
The first step with any online reputation management problem is to fix the issue first. The bottom line is not every company is perfect. Give a company enough time and exposure to clients and they will slip up every once in a while. The true service level of the company is in how they deal with these slip-ups. Nine times out of ten the client will be happy if you rectify the situation with a sense of urgency. The companies that ignore clients are generally the ones that end up with complaints.
In the meantime, as you start you work on your online reputation you can hire a company to handle the negative reviews. A good reputation management company will push down the negative reviews from the first couple of pages of Google. This will help save your business and gives you time to encourage real customers to write real reviews.
Fake reviews can be spotted easy. Here are a few ways to lose credibility with fake reviews.
1) Poor English
The person reviewing your product has poor written English skills. There are many reputation companies out there that will pass your work on to someone in a foreign country for a cheap rate. These are simply the easiest fake reviews to spot with numerous miss spelled words and sentences that don’t even make sense.
2) Too Good to Be True
Ever read a review so glowing it was an obvious fake? Most of the fake ones can be spotted because they often go way overboard and use generic language. Some glowing reviews will be 100% authentic but the fake ones throw up red flags.
3) One Review Fits All
This is my personal favorite fake review scam. Someone hire’s a company to give them positive reviews but the company doesn’t even bother to personalize the review. It’s sad when you read a review about a service company and the reviewer says how much they love the products they bought from them.
4) Familiar Name
Sometimes the reviewer’s name gives it away. You just read a great review but the name looks familiar. Oh right, that name was on their “About Us” page listed as one of them employees.
5) Quality Over Time
Good reviews don’t all come along within one week of each other. Good reviews are something you want to see over the course of time. It’s a huge red flag that someone is creating fake reviews when you see a handful of good reviews in a short time period.
Nothing can beat hard work and great customer service. Don’t hire a company that is going to waste your money by creating fake reviews. Your goal should be to foster great reviews from actual customers over the course of your business. If you do have negative reviews a good reputation management company and help push them down a few pages but don’t let fake reviews hurt your reputation.
