How to Lose a 5-Star Rating in One Day

We had a five-star standing on Google until yesterday when a guy I don’t know, who has never interacted with someone at my company left us a 1-star review citing a scenario that is not plausible at our office. Just like that our review standing dropped to mid 4s. 

What to do? 

You can flag the false review, and you can appeal to Google Small Business Support. There are even internet defamation attorneys that can help you with this. But, this is not a guaranteed solution and other platforms are not easy to flag or get in touch with leaving you with a reduced overall review score.

If you’re a small business owner, you know that building reviews is not easy. Some people tell me they fear exposing their client list to competitors. Many just find it time-consuming and a bit awkward, and since they don’t use reviews to make decisions about vendors they skip it altogether.

This is bad for your business because the way people buy products and services has changed, and reviews are increasingly becoming a central part of the modern customer buying journey.

Your only true recourse against trolls that leave bad reviews, or even customers who take out their frustrations on review sites is to have many other good reviews (which luckily we have).

There are marketing services to help you build customer reviews and manage responses for your company. At Radically Distinct those services are called Customer Voice and Reputation Management. Not too expensive and they go a long way to build trust in the ZMOT stage of the buying journey.