In this article, we'll address some of the frequently asked-questions about reviews.
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How am I notified about new reviews that come in?
By default, after we set up the system after onboarding, you will receive daily emails detailing any reviews you received that day, both positive and negative. If you did not receive any reviews that day, you will not receive an email. You can also adjust the frequency of these emails to either weekly or monthly.
What if I want someone else at my business to respond to reviews?
That's fine. Make sure that whoever you are having respond to reviews has read our best response guide. It's often best if the person who is responding to reviews is in a position of authority at your business, so that they can relay any issues to the rest of your team.
What if a former employee is trolling my review accounts?
On Yelp, if you can prove that the review is from a person who has never been a customer of your business, we can apply to have it removed.
On other platforms, we can report reviews from people who aren't customers, but the track record of those platforms actually removing those reviews is spotty.
Facebook prohibits the removal of any reviews, so any negative reviews left there are there to stay.
If it is the case that a former employee has posted a negative review, it may be more effective for you to take steps to address and try to defuse the situation. Sometimes, it's easier to deal with the situation directly than to continue dealing with a constant influx of non-legitimate negative reviews.
What if I'm consistently getting negative reviews?
People are more likely to leave negative reviews than positive ones online, namely because it takes time to write a review, and people are more likely to spend that time if they're angry or upset.
However, there may be a situation where the bad reviews are consistent and overwhelming in number. This may indicate something deeper.
Bottom line: negative reviews should not be ignored. If there's a consistent issue with negative reviews—especially if they have a consistent theme like "The service member was smoking on the job"—we'll bring it to your attention.
You may want to work with your business to rectify the problem. If the quality of service is in question, hold a company training that goes over best practices.
You know how to run your business better than anyone, but we can let you know if there's customer feedback that might help you internally define problems and turn them into strengths.
Why can't I respond to negative reviews the way I really want to?
We get it: your business is important to you, so when a negative review seems to attack you, it's tempting to respond in anger. Take a deep breathe. When you respond in a way that escalates the confrontation or evokes passionate arguing, you're only adding gasoline to the fire.
Plus, you risk turning off prospective customers who see that exchange and conclude that they'll go with a more professional competitor. No one wins.
At the end of the day, it's your business. If you want to respond to a review in this way, we can't stop you. However, we will emphasize that doing so could severely impact your entire marketing campaign in a negative way, doing far more damage than the original negative review did.
Take a better path. Use our Review Response Guidelines to respond to negative reviews in a professional, productive manner. These guidelines will help you take the high road, defusing the situation and allowing you to take it offline.