By Whitney C. Gibson
Last month’s post discussed five considerations for businesses when dealing with negative online reviews. These five considerations were:
- Directly responding to reviews;
- The so-called “carrot and stick” approach;
- Lawsuits;
- Identifying anonymous posters; and
- Weighing various factors to reach the best solution.
As stated, there is no one-size-fits all approach for dealing with negative online reviews. That said, beyond the five considerations listed above, we wanted to provide you with five more to think about when deciding how to respond to negative reviews on the internet.
Five more ways to deal with negative online reviews
1. Reconciling, offering replacements or refunds
If you receive a bad review and believe it is from a legitimate customer, it may be possible to resolve the issue quickly.
Whatever the situation may be, the consumer has lots of power, and you should avoid upsetting them any further. Therefore, I recommend trying to reconcile with dissatisfied customers, which may entail offering a replacement or even a full refund.
Some companies may be reluctant to give out a new product or refund, but the cost of doing so may be a drop in the bucket compared to what might result if the situation is fumbled or ignored altogether.
Contacting a poster early on – within 72 hours of him or her posting a negative review, if possible – is most likely to lead to a resolution. I also recommend taking the issue offline – avoiding a potential debate online – and trying to make them happy. A happy customer is important to businesses, and he or she may be willing to update or remove the negative review.
A replacement or refund is not always necessary, as coupons or gift cards have proven to be effective in many cases as well. Do not be afraid to be creative, such as offering free shipping if your business sends out products.
2. Confidentiality agreements and settlements
No matter what you do or choose not to do, there will always be risks. You may need to make some difficult decisions, so avoid being short-sighted and see the full picture.
If you choose to engage in negotiations with a customer – in particular for very damaging attacks – you may wish to have them sign a confidentiality agreement before serious discussions of a resolution take place.
When choosing how to resolve an issue, try to avoid being taken advantage of by a customer. If you give them something of value (brand new product, full refund, etc.), the last thing you want to deal with is others threatening to post negative reviews, begging for similar treatment just because they can.
3. Cease and desist letters
Sending cease and desist letters is often an effective response technique for false online reviews. However, make sure you have legal grounds, or it could create a PR nightmare.
These letters work a lot in practice, but use your best judgment – ask whether you or your company would be perceived as a bully or a victim.
Read more about cease and desist letters (including an example of one gone wrong) here.
4. Removal from websites, search engines
Beyond contacting the author of a review and trying to convince him or her to change or remove it, it is also possible to contact websites directly.
A website such as Yelp will likely consider removing a review if you can demonstrate the poster has violated its terms of service. Thus, it is beneficial to check the policies and procedures of the particular website hosting the bad review.
Some websites have very strict policies, in particular those that do not allow any review to be removed. Ripoff Report is the best example of this. Even if other techniques, such as the aforementioned reconciliation and negotiation, would otherwise be effective, Ripoff Report still does not remove reviews or allow anyone to do so.
In this situation, we often recommend obtaining a court order against the online poster that says the statements are defamatory. This court order can be presented to search engines and may ultimately lead to the removal – or de-indexing – of the links to the harmful reviews from search results.
5. Online Reputation Management (ORM)
There are certain situations where ORM “burying” techniques can be very effective. However, if an ORM firm is hired to help bury or push down content that is on a high-ranking/highly-optimized website, it is unlikely to be helpful.
Furthermore, nothing is ever guaranteed. You can pay an ORM firm a lot of money to push certain content down in search results and, even if it initially works, the link could rise up in search results again.
Accordingly, “cleanup costs” using this approach are often very high.
The 3 Ps for protecting your business from negative online reviews (and other risks)
Each of these five considerations, as well as those from last month, are important to understand and consider in the event you or your company has become the subject of a false online review. But, when possible, it is also critical to do everything you can upfront/in advance to Prevent attacks from happening; Plan for the unpreventable risks, such as potential crises; and be ready to Protect your business from the potential harm caused by an online reputational attack.
Whitney Gibson is an attorney in the Cincinnati office of Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP. He has experience representing companies and individuals in cases involving Internet issues, including Internet defamation. Whitney works closely with Agnes + Day’s Crisis Intelligence Team. Check out Whitney’s Internet defamation blog, or follow Whitney on Twitter.
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