I bet you all have wondered at least once, can google reviews be deleted? The answer is not quite simple as yes or no. And some of the reviews can be removed or flagged, some cannot be so we’ll give you the next best thing, think of as a crash course of how to respond, remove, react to negative, fake reviews for your business.
To know the process, you need to understand how it works, so here we go,
First things first, negative or fake google reviews are bad for business. But remember it is not the end of the world, to get negative or fake reviews, so how you react to it, matters. On the bright side having 2-star or 3-star reviews gives an impression of more chances being a real business, so it’s more genuine. One way to increase the overall star rating of your business is to increase the number of positive reviews, thus by flooding with positive reviews, you can easily drown the negative reviews. In most of the cases some negative reviews would be from single perception or accusing the business pointlessly, these can be understandable and don’t have much negative impact on your business. But fake reviews on the other hand have fabricated stories with an intent on harming your business. So, they have to be dealt with.
Flagging inappropriate reviews
Flagging a review as inappropriate is These are some ways flag unwanted on google, which is the same as removing them. To flag a fake or inappropriate review you’ll need Google’s support. You can just hover over the review which you wish to remove and select “flag as inappropriate”, then select the type of applicable violence from the list, and wait for it. Sometimes flagging a review doesn’t do the trick, you need to go for other possible options to remove it. If possible, have other people flag the review as well, as this could attract more attention to the offensive review and allow Google to delete it.
Read also ; How to remove negative content from Google search?
Getting small business support
In some cases, if flagging doesn’t work, then we can contact Google’s small business support,
Go to support.google.com/business, then select “contact us”.
Later click on “customer review and photos”, then manage customer reviews.
Then on how to receive help, web chat, phone or email.
By using any of these methods, you can expect to remove the review within 24 hours, choosing e-mail or web chat you can attach the screenshot of the reviews you want to delete.
After contacting the google support, you will get an acknowledgement, then someone from the support team, would be contacting you, to which you need to explain to them your stand on why do think the review is fake or why you want it to be removed. And send in a request for the removal. Sometimes it will be escalated to google support specialist, and it will be their decision to remove it. If you explain it well and have a valid reason to back it up, you can sure hope to remove it.
How to respond to negative reviews
If everything else fails you can downplay the negative reviews. By calmly clarifying and responding to the review you can show your to-be customers that you have nothing to hide and explain your stance. Analyse the situation and find the best possible response to the review in talk. So, your primary objective is to clarify the situation, so politely try to resolve it. Next try to reconcile with the customer, or try to solve their issue and gently ask them to remove the review or change it personally. Additionally, ask your customers to leave their positive feedback, which will increase the positive reviews and push down negative reviews if not deleting them.
Conclusion
When a negative review pops on your business account, try to figure out whether it’s fake, or real. Once you’ve done that, even if fake you can’t call out reviews to be fake online, rather respond firmly and politely. So, try to be responsible and respond promptly. Later see if you can delete the google review, by flagging or contacting google support, thus you can successfully delete a google review.