Social Media - Reviews and Negative Feedback

Social Media - Reviews and Negative Feedback

Author
Discussion

mc_blue

Original Poster:

2,548 posts

217 months

Monday 8th February 2016
quotequote all
Hi all,

We're a service provider and had an incident whereby we have allegedly damaged a vehicle. The usual process is that if it is found that damage has been caused it will be rectified by us. We attend 100s of vehicles every month but sometimes mistakes do happen nobody is infallible.

The client or someone acting on behalf of the client has posted on social media that my company needs to "need to learn how to recover vehicles" and that I employ a "massive bunch of idiots." I've now had a number of one star review on Facebook in response to this individual's post from people who have never been customers of ours and therefore have no right to leave unjustified poor reviews. If reviews are left without comments I cannot even flag them to Facebook for moderation.

I would rather not have any links or names mentioned, just asking for any advice that you may have in terms of any legal position. I assume I have no power whatsoever? In which case this just seems like a bad case, as I have received poor feedback.

Many thanks

Amar

LDN

8,905 posts

202 months

Monday 8th February 2016
quotequote all
It's a horrid struggle that I've been through with one venture... someone using it as leverage 'I'll post bad reviews if you don't blah blah blah...' - there's only so much you can do but in my case, I prepped my own legal letter using nothing but common sense and tried that as a first port of call - and it was effective for the most part. The problem with what you've described is the one star reviews that have nobody actually tied to them. All you can do is post a lot of 5 star reviews yourself to cancel out the low scores. Not great morally but neither is what the other side of done. Competition can do this to one another as well which is really low IMO. You should still try FB and explain - but I would never hold my breath; you need to be pro-active. From their side (there are always two sides) - maybe you've caused a massive inconvenience and they feel justified in bringing your reputation down? You need to deal with them and try to make them happy firstly... maybe easier said than done.

mc_blue

Original Poster:

2,548 posts

217 months

Monday 8th February 2016
quotequote all
Hi,

Without giving too much away we are doing as much as we can. The comments are somewhat unjustified, like I said if we make a mistake we will rectify it. This just seems unnecessary and if I could take legal action I would.

Ste1987

1,798 posts

105 months

Monday 8th February 2016
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Maybe the best thing to do is turn off reviews for now

veevee

1,455 posts

150 months

Monday 8th February 2016
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I'm not familiar with Facebook reviews, but if you can leave a comment in reply to a review, a well phrased, and somewhat explanatory reply goes a long way. Obviously won't bring your average up, but if anyone bothers to read the reviews then they'll also see the reply.

mc_blue

Original Poster:

2,548 posts

217 months

Monday 8th February 2016
quotequote all
It is so frustrating when you genuinely do try and do you best and it is okay for a random member of the public to rubbish your company image with a fictitious review.

rog007

5,748 posts

223 months

Monday 8th February 2016
quotequote all
Honest and swift retorts can bring about a swing in reputation; and an apology and quick rectification of any damage if it was indeed your fault. Then move on. Good Luck!

dacouch

1,172 posts

128 months

Monday 8th February 2016
quotequote all
LDN said:
All you can do is post a lot of 5 star reviews yourself to cancel out the low scores. Not great morally but neither is what the other side of done.
It's illegal for a business to do that

LDN

8,905 posts

202 months

Monday 8th February 2016
quotequote all
dacouch said:
LDN said:
All you can do is post a lot of 5 star reviews yourself to cancel out the low scores. Not great morally but neither is what the other side of done.
It's illegal for a business to do that
Egan you say illegal....... you mean there's an actual law of the land? If you mean against the T&C of a given website then fair enough but hen surely; so is leaving false bad reviews...

Hoofy

76,253 posts

281 months

Monday 8th February 2016
quotequote all
dacouch said:
LDN said:
All you can do is post a lot of 5 star reviews yourself to cancel out the low scores. Not great morally but neither is what the other side of done.
It's illegal for a business to do that
Illegal or "illegal"? biggrin

dacouch

1,172 posts

128 months

Monday 8th February 2016
quotequote all
LDN said:
Egan you say illegal....... you mean there's an actual law of the land? If you mean against the T&C of a given website then fair enough but hen surely; so is leaving false bad reviews...
Breaches Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations.


Hoofy

76,253 posts

281 months

Monday 8th February 2016
quotequote all
dacouch said:
Breaches Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations.
Would that work the other way round, if say I was to post a bad review on a rival's page? Because I'd essentially be encouraging people to shop with me not the competition?

dacouch

1,172 posts

128 months

Tuesday 9th February 2016
quotequote all
Hoofy said:
Would that work the other way round, if say I was to post a bad review on a rival's page? Because I'd essentially be encouraging people to shop with me not the competition?
"22. Falsely claiming or creating the impression that the trader is not acting for purposes relating to his trade, business, craft or profession, or falsely representing oneself as a consumer."



Landlord

12,689 posts

256 months

Tuesday 9th February 2016
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What are your other scores like?

We used to fret endlessly about TripAdvisor reviews, feeling devastated when a negative one (3 stars or fewer) was posted. After a while, however, we realised that, actually, the vast majority of people are clever enough to work out that, say, a 4.8 out of 5 rating is more indicative than a single, ranting 1-star review.

We have a huge bias towards 4 and 5 star reviews for our pub, however we got a 2 star "poor" review recently because we served the wrong kind of tomato juice. We just ignore reviews like this now, trusting that the public go with the consensus rather than individual reviews.

Sadly, a couple of years ago we had 3 justifiably bad reviews in a row, all for the same day and we traced them to a single member of staff who was being a dick that day. Naturally we dispensed with their services swiftly and I responded to all of the reviews. I apologised profusely, explained about the rouge staff member and invited the reviewers to contact me so we could sort it out (by way of vouchers). From memory only one of the three did reply but he was very appreciative of our taking his review seriously and of the voucher.

My point being that you should only give a st about poor reviews when they are obviously justified/bunched/etc. Think like a customer rather than the owner. If you were reading reviews of somewhere and they had a load of "great service", "top quality work", "receptionist has great tits" reviews and one or two vitriolic "I literally vomited with indignation when they failed to staple my receipt to the invoice" etc

Hoofy

76,253 posts

281 months

Tuesday 9th February 2016
quotequote all
dacouch said:
Hoofy said:
Would that work the other way round, if say I was to post a bad review on a rival's page? Because I'd essentially be encouraging people to shop with me not the competition?
"22. Falsely claiming or creating the impression that the trader is not acting for purposes relating to his trade, business, craft or profession, or falsely representing oneself as a consumer."
Good to know. Hard to prove I guess if I create fake names and post bad reviews on a competitor's page.

mcflurry

9,079 posts

252 months

Tuesday 9th February 2016
quotequote all
Landlord said:
We used to fret endlessly about TripAdvisor reviews, feeling devastated when a negative one (3 stars or fewer) was posted. After a while, however, we realised that, actually, the vast majority of people are clever enough to work out that, say, a 4.8 out of 5 rating is more indicative than a single, ranting 1-star review.
As an end user, I usually ignore the very top and bottom scores, as believe they're written by the owner's best friend and their main competitor wink


xjay1337

15,966 posts

117 months

Tuesday 9th February 2016
quotequote all
OP, sorry to hear about it.
As you say, mistakes happen, but people act like pack animals these days - they tell their mates and usually, if they are scum, they get their friends to give bad reviews.
Unfortunately while hugely scummy there is nothing you can do and I don't think you can remove reviews.

All you can do is reply to the review, just state, sorry, you have not had any work done by us, can you please remove your review?

While we are cussing them at least to the public we need to be polite. frown

dacouch

1,172 posts

128 months

Tuesday 9th February 2016
quotequote all
Hoofy said:
Good to know. Hard to prove I guess if I create fake names and post bad reviews on a competitor's page.
In the (Unlikely) event of you being investigated for it, the first thing they would look at would be the IP addresses

Hoofy

76,253 posts

281 months

Tuesday 9th February 2016
quotequote all
dacouch said:
Hoofy said:
Good to know. Hard to prove I guess if I create fake names and post bad reviews on a competitor's page.
In the (Unlikely) event of you being investigated for it, the first thing they would look at would be the IP addresses
Yeah - unlikely but enough to make someone lose business or get a bad reputation.

Efbe

9,251 posts

165 months

Friday 12th February 2016
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turn off facebook reviews, unless you think you can get enough people writing reviews to cancel out the bad ones. If you need to keep it going, then incentivise people to leave good reviews. discounts, competitions, free icecream etc.

despite people having the capcity to look into what reviews make up a score, in reality people will go to a 4.7 pub over a 4.6 one. It does matter.

what matters less is where you get that from.

a good deal of companies list on trust advisor and maybe gain 3.9, then link in the google seo and on their site they have 4.5 stars, yet this is a fixed number, and usually well out of date.