How to Remove a Google Review

As a business owner, it’s exciting to see that someone has taken the time to share their thoughts about your company’s products or services. However, that excitement can turn to frustration when you realize the review is fake or full of spam. You may fear that other people reading your business reviews will be turned off. Part of your frustration may stem from the mistaken belief that you can’t do anything about it.

While it is nearly impossible to remove a negative review from a real customer, if you get a review that is truly fake, or spam - there are steps you can take.

Think of a fake review in the same way you consider a negative review. It might not be the feedback you wanted, but it gives you an opportunity to show other customers that your organization responds professionally and wants to help. If you don’t think you can respond in this manner, it’s probably best not to respond at all (although we do think you should respond). Here’s an example of an appropriate response to a fake review:

“While our company takes these types of complaints seriously, we are unable to locate a customer account based on the information you have provided. If you’re a past or present customer of our company, feel free to reach out to us so we can resolve this problem for you right away.”

In your response, be sure to use the name of the reviewer as well as the name of the person he or she should contact to discuss the matter further.

If you feel a review is truly fake or spam (as opposed to a legitimate negative review), you can flag it for Google's attention.

First, Hover over the review and a flag icon will appear to the right of the star rating.

After listing your email address, you then need to choose one of the following four reasons for making the report:

• Post is off-topic
  
• Post contains spam or other inappropriate advertising
  
• Contents of the post are violent, hateful, or otherwise inappropriate
  
• Post contains one or more conflicts of interest
  

A representative from Google may contact you if he or she needs additional information. If possible, ask several people in your organization to read and flag the review.

Google receives thousands of flagged reports, which means the company may not be able to respond to your request as quickly as you would like. To expedite matters, you will need to contact support for Google Small Business. You will need to log into the Google My Business page and navigate to the reviews section to get started. From there, follow these steps:

• Select the support option from your home menu
  
• Choose how you would like Google Small Business to contact you
  
• Upload a screenshot of the fake review
  

You should receive a response within one to two business days after submitting your request. You can also try to contact the Small Business Support Team via Twitter and go through the same process. Additionally, consider accessing Google’s Community Support Forum to locate someone who can help you escalate the issue.

When you’re finally speaking to an associate from the Small Business Support Team, make sure that you’re prepared to explain why you think the review is fake and why Google should remove it. Explain how it violates their own policies and add images or links to back up your claim if you have them. The person you speak with may escalate the issue further by sending it to a specialist to decide the outcome. In either case, you will receive a call back from the original representative you spoke to within a few days.

Although your company should expect the occasional legitimate negative review, you can combat them by developing a good review generation strategy. The easiest way to accomplish this is to enlist the help of a review platform like Get More Reviews to generate new positive reviews and intercept and respond to the bad ones. This is true regardless of the type of business you operate. Our company has helped retail outlets, doctors, insurance agents, home service contractors, and several other types of service professionals get the reviews they need to build a stellar online reputation.

The best time to receive a customer’s honest feedback is immediately after he or she has experienced your company’s product or service. Delaying the review by even a few hours means that your customer will forget important details as well as feel less inclined to share his or her feedback. You can bypass this concern by sending each customer an email or text thanking him or her for the business and requesting the favor of a review. Get More Reviews provides you with the option of sending individual emails or texts or uploading them as a group.

Both our emails and texts include a clickable link for a customer to leave an immediate review. We even pre-populate the star field with five stars, which means your customer must physically change it if he or she wants to give a lesser rating. If your company should happen to receive a one-star rating, you can block it from becoming public and send the reviewer a message with the opportunity to explain what went wrong and how your company could improve. This gives the reviewer the chance to vent frustration without it potentially drawing other customers away from your business.

As a client of Get More Reviews, you just sit back and enjoy the good reviews pouring in while our platform handles the following:

• Review generation via text or email
  
• Automated review reminders
  
• Bad review blocker
  
• Website and email tools
  
• Automatic posting of positive reviews to social media channels
  
• Reputation monitoring so you know immediately when your company has received a bad review
  
• Automated reporting to show your company’s performance
  

Well handled online reviews can be an asset for your business. To find out more, contact us at 1-888-979-2379 to ask questions or request a demonstration.