No one likes to see a bad review about his or her business on the Internet, especially if it comes from a disgruntled employee or a competitor who is trying to ruin your reputation. Bad reviews can be devastating.

47% Never Look Back

Forty seven percent of potential customers who read a bad review will go onto the next business listing without giving your business a second glance.

Here’s the dirty little secret reviewers won’t tell you. The vast majority of bad reviews are from people who are very upset, angry or disappointed with your service. And, their reason for providing a bad review has little to do with the product or service they purchased, it almost always has to do with how you made them feel.

Problem is, the reviewer who took the time to leave a bad review is already angry, and it’s going to be harder to change their mind now than it would have been at the time when the problem occurred. But fortunately, all is not lost.

If you have a bad review that you want removed from Google, here are five solutions that will either win back a dissatisfied customer or push spam reviews to the back of the line.

Solution 1

The only person who can edit or remove a review on your Google Map account is the person who put it there. If you know who they are, you can try to persuade them to change it or remove it. But, here’s the catch.

You must be willing to apologize for your mistake and make things right with the person who posted the bad review. And the only way you’re going to do that is to listen to their concern, apologize and offer a solution. If you handle yourself properly, you’ll be surprised at how easy it can be to get a bad review removed. If you don’t, you’re going to make matters worse … sometimes much worse

Before you initiate contact, put yourself in the mindset of a problem solver. Your goal is to make the reviewer feel better about you and your company without making them feel bad about posting their review. Here’s what you need to do.

  1. Contact the person who posted the review and tell them that you saw their review on Google and that you want to find out what happened and make things right.
  2. Listen to their complaint until they’re finished talking.
  3. Paraphrase what they said and apologize for what went wrong.
  4. Let them know how much you appreciate them bringing their concern to your attention and ask for their suggestion on what you can do make things right.
  5. Follow through on their suggestion before you move onto step six.
  6. Ask them if they would be willing to edit or remove their review. If they do, you’ve succeeded. If they don’t, you’ve lost nothing but time.

Solution 2

Google will only show five or six reviews on the first page of your Local Business Listing. If you can generate five or six positive reviews, it will move the bad review to the second or third page. Most people will not look that far into your listing before making a decision. But, and this is a big “BUT,” if you ask for too many positive reviews too quickly, Google will push your business listing down in their rankings. When Google sees lots of reviews in a short period of time, it triggers a spam reaction. Spread your positive reviews out over a couple of days or a couple of weeks. Be patient.

Solution 3

Is the review inappropriate according to Google? Read their rules and regulations about reviews and see if this review violates their rules. If it does, you can click the “Flag as inappropriate” button and leave your explanation as to why this review should be removed. If it does violate Google’s rules, they will remove it. This takes time, so be patient and be persistent.

Solution 4

Under each review, Google asks, “Is This Review Helpful (Yes / No).” Google probably won’t remove the review if enough people say, “No,” but if 10 out of 10 people indicate the review was not helpful, your readers will discount the review and basically ignore it. Ask your customers and friends to rate poor reviews as not helpful.

Solution 5

Google now allows you to offer a management response, as do many other review sites. For example, if you get a bad review on Google or Insiderpages.com or TripAdvisor.com, you have an opportunity to respond to the review directly. But let me warn you, there are three approaches you can take when responding to a bad review and only one works.

You can respond in anger. You can respond by making an excuse. You can respond with an apology and a solution.

If you would like to see a well written management response to a poor review, check out the management response by the owner of Eva Villa Bed and Breakfast on Insider Pages.

The management response will show up directly under the bad review on the site where it was posted. This gives the reader an opportunity to see what the problem was and how you as the owner/manager handled the complaint.

The very best way to handle bad reviews is to insure that unhappy customers never get to the point where they post their bad reviews to the Internet. find a way to uncover and solve their concern before they leave your presence. If you provide exceptional service, poor reviews will never become an issue.

If you want to learn how our customers generate many more 5-star reviews than their competitors, while keeping less than five star reviews from ever getting to the Internet, check out The Five Star Review System. There is nothing on the market like it.

8 Responses to “Getting Bad Reviews Removed”

  1. […] more about removing a bad review from Google here. Written by Josh Sommers in: Marketing | Tags: Google, Local Search, Marketing, […]

  2. […] are a few things you can do to get them removed from your listing. Please read my article on “Getting Bad Reviews Removed” if this is an issue for […]

  3. Another solution would be to consult a review management company, or read about how to deal with customers to have better retention via some programs.

  4. […] are a few things you can do to get them removed from your listing. Please read my article on “Getting Bad Reviews Removed” if this is an issue for […]

  5. Emma D'Antoine says:

    What’s the point in being able to write a bad review if it just gets removed? Maybe that business gave dreadful service. It’s like ebay sellers trying to get you not to leave a negative or neutral comment.

  6. Oliver Gibson says:

    Thanks for the info.. I tried most things. In the end, I had some good results with http://www.googleplacesreviews.net

  7. Sommers says:

    Hi Oliver. I checked out the link and it looks like they provide a service that provides fake reviews. They are breaking one or more of the rules set forth by Google and the other sites with respect to reviews. This could really hurt a company if and when Google discovers what’s going on. Check out this video on the 5 Rules You Never Want To Break With Customer Reviews.
    I would like to learn more about their map creation segment however.