Navigating the world of online reviews

Fake reviews are one of the biggest challenges businesses face today. Customer Radar’s Mat Wylie explains what business owners can do to protect their online reputation.

Google reviews have been a big topic in the news recently, with several Kiwi businesses hit hard by a new scam that tries to extort money with the threat of posting fake reviews.

Customer reviews and ratings have never been more important for brands, or more dangerous for their survival – especially when they’re false.

Sadly, this isn’t a problem with a simple fix. Despite the public knowing about the prevalence of scam reviews and unreasonable customers, people still make buying decisions based on businesses’ ratings.

So what do you do when you’re hit with fake reviews – and how do you proactively prevent bad reviews from having a massive impact on your business?

I chatted with Catherine George, co-owner of Auckland restaurant Paris Butter, to find out about her experience with the recent scams – and look at what businesses worried about fake reviews can do to protect themselves.

Scams don’t just mean bad reviews

While we all love the idea of getting almost 100 five-star reviews, when those pop up in the space of just a few hours, it’s a pretty clear sign that something isn’t quite right – and that’s exactly what happened to Paris Butter.

“Our business partner in France noticed them overnight (NZ time) and messaged us to ask if we’d paid for some reviews,” explains Catherine. “It was 100 percent not our style and wasn’t us – but we knew something was up.

“We’d heard about the scam in Europe and the US where they flood you with five-star reviews and then demand money to avoid getting the same amount, or more, of one-star reviews, so we were immediately suspicious.”

Pool your resources

One of the biggest challenges that any business faces when it comes to fake reviews is getting them removed – and Google isn’t known for doing very much. Although they supposedly have automated spam detection measures, they don’t always pick up the fake ones – or remove the reviews when a business complains about them.

“We reported them to Google, but didn’t have much luck,” says Catherine. “It was really tough being told by Google to contact the customer to resolve the issue when they complained about breakfast (we don’t open for breakfast).”

However, they soon realised that other restaurants in New Zealand had been hit too – and reached out to see if they could team up to get a better cut through. They were able to get the media involved, and once there was publicity, the reviews were slowly removed – but it took some time.

Be proactive with your reviews

These days, the Paris Butter team is trying to make sure they’ve protected their brand against the damage that any false reviews could do.

“In all our follow-up emails to all guests, we ask them to let us know about their experience, review us if it’s good and let us know if it’s not,” says Catherine. “We always make the point of responding to reviews, good or bad, as we are always trying to evolve our service and offering and provide the best experience for our customers.

“There’s nothing else we can do when Google refuses to take down fake reviews except to make the real ones shine.”

Whether you send out emails or have a customer feedback tool like Customer Radar driving customers to leave Google reviews, being proactive is vital to protecting your brand – something Catherine recognises.

“As a small fine-dining restaurant, reviews can make or break us. Hospitality has been tough recently; bad reviews can be the icing on the cake. Had we been impacted by hundreds of fake one-star reviews that could have shut us down. Customers rely on reviews before choosing where to go for dinner; it was really scary.”

As the recent scams show us, we can’t just sit back and wait for someone to control our online reputation – if we want to ensure it’s protected, we need to be taking active actions towards building a positive one.

What are you doing to proactively manage your online reputation?

Mat Wylie (pictured) is CEO of Customer Radar. For more information about how you can make a difference to your customers’ experience and bottom line go to www.customerradar.com