Online Reputation Management

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Fake Google Reviews are the Worst. Here's How to Spot Them.

All small businesses are after 3 things: more exposure, more credibility, and more customers. With Google Reviews being the fastest growing online review platform, it&#8217;s a great place to collect positive reviews that boost your online reputation and allow you to achieve all three.
When your perfect customers are looking in your area for your services, not only do you show up on Google Maps but you show up with good Google reviews. Google Maps reviews are great at driving physical traffic to your store. Google reviews also help you get seen in search results and a good SEO ranking drives digital traffic to your website.
However, as with everything online, with the good comes the bad. Fake negative Google reviews can interfere with your diligently-built online reputation and sully your business online, ultimately driving customers away and into the arms of competitors.
So how do you navigate the world of Google reviews to elevate your business through positive reviews while avoiding the impact of fake negative reviews? Fortunately, you can report fake reviews to Google and they will remove them if they find it wasn&#8217;t honest feedback from a genuine customer.
First, you&#8217;ve got to spot the real from the fake among your online reviews.
<h2>Signs a Google Review Might be Fake</h2>
While there is no surefire way to spot a fake Google review from your end, there are some signs to look out for when dealing with negative Google reviews. Sadly, there are businesses that will go to the lengths of buying Google reviews that support their own business and then buying negative reviews to take down their competitors. That means these online reviews are written by scammers who often post them in bulk and therefore they are pretty poor quality.
Many fake reviews will be:
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Spammy with loads of exclamation marks, misspelled words and grammatical errors.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Irrelevant to your business because they talk about products you don&#8217;t sell or not including any details specific to your business because it&#8217;s been a copy-and-paste job.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Posted by a questionable account with a weird name, email address and profile with either no other reviews posted or loads of other suspiciously similar negative reviews.</li>
</ul>
If a bad review doesn&#8217;t seem real, don&#8217;t let it override all your positive online reviews. Follow this process of dealing with fake negative Google reviews.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignnone wp-image-25497 size-large" src="https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/woman-looking-at-spam-1024x555.png" alt="woman looking at spam" width="640" height="347" srcset="https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/woman-looking-at-spam-1024x555.png 1024w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/woman-looking-at-spam-300x163.png 300w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/woman-looking-at-spam-768x416.png 768w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/woman-looking-at-spam-600x325.png 600w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/woman-looking-at-spam-360x195.png 360w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/woman-looking-at-spam-160x87.png 160w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/woman-looking-at-spam-350x190.png 350w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/woman-looking-at-spam-100x54.png 100w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/woman-looking-at-spam-633x343.png 633w, https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/woman-looking-at-spam.png 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px" />
<h2>You Got a Fake Review…Now What?</h2>
Yes, follow the Google reviews process for reporting fake reviews which we&#8217;ve outlined below. But that&#8217;s not it. Bad reviews can take a while to be removed by Google and you don&#8217;t want potential clients who visit your business page to be put off during the wait.
As well as following your strategy of getting more Google reviews to drown out the fake, it might be worth responding to the spam review. It shows you&#8217;re actively engaging with customer feedback and willing to do what you can to make amends. Not that a fake reviewer will care about what you offer. It&#8217;s your browsing prospects that need to see this demonstration of good customer service. 
It&#8217;s also important to collect proof of the negative review being fake. Google doesn&#8217;t accept all requests for removal. They may follow up with you for more information. Be ready to prove your case with the nature of the review itself (for example, does it mention buying furniture but your business is in the cryptocurrency sector?) and the credibility of the account such as screenshots that they&#8217;ve been leaving similar reviews on other business profiles. From your own records, can you prove that they are not a real customer? Have all the necessary information ready in case Google asks for it.
Do keep track of your removal request to make sure it is being dealt with. Google is the most popular of the review platforms so they are going to get thousands of similar requests. You don&#8217;t want to get forgotten. Follow up with them if there&#8217;s no change in your request status after a few days.
<h3>Reporting Fake Negative Google Reviews: Step-by-Step</h3>
Once you&#8217;ve figured out a Google Review is fake, you can report it through your Google Business profile.
<ol>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Click on the reviews tab to see all your business&#8217; Google reviews.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Click on the 3 dots to the right of the Google Review and select Flag as inappropriate.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Then a survey will pop up. Select your reason for flagging the online review. In this case, it&#8217;s spam.</li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Submit your answer and that&#8217;s it. Your removal request has been sent.</li>
</ol>
Remember the removal process isn&#8217;t automatic so keep an eye out for follow up emails from Google and check the status of your request to make sure it is progressing. In the meantime, just focus on getting more Google reviews— positive reviews, that is!

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<h2></h2>
<h2>It’s Not Fake…Now What?</h2>
Genuine unhappy reviews do exist. That&#8217;s the risk of opening your business up for customer feedback to gain valuable insights and boost your brand online. It&#8217;s something you need to brief your customer support team on in case they see a bad review that has no signs of being fake or Google determines it&#8217;s not spam.
If that is the case, whether the negativity was warranted or not, here&#8217;s how to respond to new Google reviews that don&#8217;t put your business in the best light.
<h4>Address the customer by name.</h4>
A personalized and considered response is highly thought of by customers. It shows you care.
<h4>Apologize for the bad experience.</h4>
Again, this shows a level of empathy that is appreciated. There&#8217;s no point in getting defensive at the risk of starting a fight on the internet. Not a good look.
<h4>Offer to take the conversation offline.</h4>
It&#8217;s best that conflicts are dealt with privately. You don&#8217;t want to draw attention to it and away from the good reviews. It also means you can ask for private details to help resolve the issue.
<h4>Let them know you plan to make some changes.</h4>
Showing you&#8217;re willing to change and provide a better service for your customers has a positive impact.
In a way, how you handle challenging customers says as much about your business and your customer service as your good Google reviews. How a company acts online has the potential to attract or put off its target market.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignnone wp-image-25498 size-large" src="https://cms.podium.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/happy-woman-using-podium-for-reviews-1024x555.png" alt="happy woman using podium for reviews" width="640" height="347" />
<h2>Need Help Managing Reviews? Try Podium.</h2>
From boosting your local SEO ranking and making your company name known to more leads visiting your store after finding you on Google Maps, there&#8217;s a lot to gain from Google reviews. As your business grows and you have more reviews coming in, it can be difficult to keep track of them all, responding to positive ones and handling less positive ones. The more reviews you get, the more important it is to protect your brand online and have the proper tools to manage Google reviews.
Podium helps you streamline your communication with your target market through text, website chats and reviews, and more. You&#8217;ve probably heard of Google Review bots, a way to monitor your Google reviews as they come in. We take it a step further with a tool that integrates monitoring Google reviews as well as setting up text messaging so you can ask customers to leave reviews. 
You don&#8217;t need a review bot or to buy google reviews for your business to succeed. In fact, we wouldn&#8217;t recommend it. You just need Podium. For efficient management of your online interactions with prospects and customers, including Google reviews,<a href="https://www.podium.com/free-trial/"> give our free trial a go.</a>

Fake Google Reviews are the Worst. Here's How to Spot Them.

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