There’s nothing worse than that sinking feeling you get when you open up a poor customer review.  Especially when it’s completely unfounded!  Perhaps you haven’t even had a chance to fix the problem yet?  Or you know you’re simply dealing with a completely unreasonable person.  Worse still – there are those online reviews that are totally fake.  The reviewer has never been a customer of yours, they’re out to ruin your business and you don’t know what to do about it.  

Your business relies on positive reviews, you can’t afford to lose customers and you begin to panic. A damaged reputation can have enormous consequences – from reduced business revenue to future employment problems and emotional stress. Your first instinct is to write back – to right the wrongdoing.  To put your case forward so your Trustpilot score or your Feefo score (amongst others) doesn’t impact your business and next, to find out what you can do to remove the offending piece.  Particularly when it’s completely untrue.  It’s giving you and your business a bad name, it’s slanderous.

Dealing with online slander in the UK is tricky but it can be done.  If you’ve been the victim of defamation and someone has posted something online about you in a personal capacity or about your business that is untrue and is likely to harm your reputation, you have every right to get rid of the offensive post.  According to reviewtrackers.com, 4% of consumers say that a bad review stops them using a business.  So you should definitely act but when it comes to online slander in the UK, what are your options?  Ctrl+Alt+Del Reputation Management gives you the lowdown.

You Could Just Ignore a Bad Review

People tend to recognise when reviews are fake, especially when the reviewer hasn’t published any other reviews.  If you’re a restaurant owner, for example, and someone complains that they were asked to leave your restaurant – someone reading that review would likely consider why and probably put it down to the customer being difficult or a troublemaker.  Eventually that review will drop down the list and be more or less forgotten.  Even the biggest names on the high street along with the most respected brands have bad reviews.

You Can Respond

Don’t spring into action without sitting down and thinking clearly.  By jumping straight onto a bad review or unfavourable comment, you could miss out vital information.  Do your research first and get your facts together.  It’s always a good idea to respond but before you do, have you contacted the customer (if they’re genuine)?  Have you tried to resolve the situation?  If not, resolve it fast and once you’ve done so, ask for them to remove the review or at the very least, update it with a favourable response.  

If the customer refuses your resolution offer, then you should respond in detail to the review.  Don’t be aggressive as this will put off future customers.  Be factual, be understanding but support your case and explain you did offer a resolution, but it was refused.

You Can Request Removal 

What about if a customer is being completely unreasonable or if the review is a fake?  Some online review sites (such as Feefo and Trustpilot) give you the option of requesting further information.  You can request for the review to be removed but you have to provide supporting information to prove that the review is, indeed, fake, or unfounded.  For Trustpilot review removal, contact support@trustpilot.com and for Feefo, support@feefo.com.

The process is more complicated for Facebook, you can submit a request through their Help pages (https://www.facebook.com/help) but they are notorious at being very slow to respond, sometimes failing to respond at all!  If you’ve received a negative Google review, you can follow the steps below to request removal:

• Sign into your business account on Google (Google My Business).
• Select your business location.
• Locate “Reviews” in the menu.
• Find the review you wish to flag and click on the three dots alongside it, then flag it as inappropriate.  You will receive a response from Google if it needs more information.

What If You Can’t Get Your Review Removed?

Perhaps you’ve done all of the above and you can’t get your review removed?  What are your options? 

You could file a lawsuit but of course, going down this route is costly and a lengthy process.  It’s not something that you really want to do unless the slander is really severely, impacting your life on an emotional level and greatly affecting your business.

Using Reputation Management 

One of the most effective options to manage online slander and bad reviews is by taking control using reputation management to fix the issue.  It’s a far less costly option than a lawsuit and it generates excellent results. 

Be In Control

Using reputation management helps you to control the situation rather than being a victim of slander.  It deletes the negative content but that’s not all.  It also suppresses it and works hard to challenge negative content online.  Putting it bluntly, it resets the information, posting positive content on your behalf in place of the negative content. So, the initial problem is removed, and your reputation becomes blemish-free.

 Here’s some information on how it works:

• Ctrl+Alt+Del performs an online analysis of your online reputation to fully understand it.
• Next, specific, alternative content is created and posted online, designed to rank positively and highly for your name or business name.  New, positive content is posted frequently on specific websites, Google recognises this content as valuable and pushes your name up the rankings.
• Effective SEO (search engine optimisation) is performed to promote the new content, so it hits the high notes on Google (and other search engines).
• Your good name is restored.

Most importantly, using Ctrl+Alt+Del Reputation Management, you can fix the problem and do it fast.  No more worrying that your good name is tarnished on a business or personal level, or obsessively checking online reviews when you really need to concentrate on business success.  We take the headache away from you and what’s more, it’s an affordable service that delivers superb results.  Don’t let that bad review ruin your week.  Take control with Ctrl+Alt+Del.  Get in touch today, you’ll be delighted with the level of service we provide. Together, we fix it.