Step-By-Step Guide on How to Remove Negative Reviews
You’ve just checked your email, and you’re getting bombarded with notifications. Your business is being attacked.
Bad actors are maliciously slandering your livelihood and spreading negative reviews. A snowball effect takes place, and the negativity piles on. You read each sentence, and you’re feeling heated as each word bothers you even more. Knowing full well that it’s all untrue, you still enter panic mode. What to do!? You can’t have customers seeing this! You needed to remove these negative reviews yesterday.
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With everything being transparent and online, your personal life and business rely heavily on your online presence, and reputation means everything. It’s only natural to have a knee-jerk reaction to any negative reviews, aka shade thrown your way. You’ll want to lash out or go on the offensive to get payback and right any wrongdoing did to you or your business. But it should be known that there are solutions out there. Take a deep breath, pause, and reflect on how removing negative review services are out there. You don’t want to get your hands dirty, so leave it to the experts at reputation.America, where removal specialists can delete information from all social networks and get you back on track with a sparkling reputation and formidable online presence. In the meantime, here is a step-by-step guide on how to remove negative reviews yourself.
Setting Off on the Right Foot – Remove Negative Reviews The Correct Way
It would be best if you took some time to ask yourself these questions first:
- Is the negative review slanderous? For example, reviewers are making personal attacks and false accusations of any crime or wrongdoing.
- If the answer is yes, contact the site directly to report the commenter, and most of the time, removing the negative review will be done swiftly.
- If the answer is no, then ask yourself –
- Does the negative review violate the site’s TOS (terms of service)?
- If the answer is yes, then it should be taken down immediately by the site, but if the answer is no, then one must be real with themselves and ask –
- Does the negative review have any truth to it?
- If yes, make sure to reach out privately to the commenter and try to solve the issue (unless you feel uncomfortable, Reputation.America specializes in negotiations and can handle it from here on your behalf).
Note: Be patient. Sometimes, it can take up to a week for a commenter to remove their negative reviews or update their comments.
Lastly, if there is no truth, then it’s time to bring out the big guns (Reputation.America), where posting a public response is necessary to mediate any further negative reviews and further backlash.
Instead of just removing negative reviews, reputation.America gets to the root of the problem and solves things by shining some positive light on your side of the story in clear, calm, and collected fact-based language.
There is no blame game, and we never make accusations. Who likes to argue anyway? We aren’t children picking a fight here. With years of experience and familiarity with how users behave, we adapt to peoples’ personalities and even go so far as analyzing the language used to speak on a level that reaches the commenter.
Your Business is Your Business
Addressing negative reviews and common complaints are indicative of how you handle business, in general. You shouldn’t dwell on the outright rude and super negative reviewers, but if the same problems keep popping up, it’s essential to address them before anything else.
There’s a reason we have two ears and one mouth; one must listen twice as much as they talk, and as a good business owner, it’s crucial to listen to critics and put out any fires. This is the most effective tool to remove negative reviews online.
Your Magic Eraser to Remove Negative Reviews
Such a simple solution, right? “Hey there, website owner, can you delete that horrible review for me? Sweet, thanks!”
Unfortunately, it’s not that easy. Websites aren’t even legally liable for what their users post.
Typically, review sites have strict guidelines, and as mentioned above, a TOS for removing negative reviews. The review must be personally threatening, profane, and proof that it is likely a business competitor or a fake reviewer to be removed.
It’s also important to note that the process for determining whether or not to remove negative reviews is entirely subjective. The final say rests solely with the website. So, there is no guarantee. What is also tricky are negative reviews that sound reasonable, calm, and collected are challenging to remove, regardless of how blatantly false and inaccurate they may be.
Facing the Heat – Replying to Negative Reviews
For sites that refuse to take down negative reviews, it’s best to reply directly. But knowing how to respond can be a game-changer for potential customers and your business. Being able to see both sides of the problem is incredibly important.
Here are some rules you can try for yourself when replying to negative reviewers:
- Don’t be a jerk and be polite. I think this rule can be applied to almost everything in life, not just responding to negative reviews. Hate breeds hate, so instead of fueling the fire, kill with kindness.
- If you indeed are in the wrong, apologize. Owning up to your mistakes is a sign of ethical behavior and is paramount to any successful business. It also demonstrates that you’re listening.
- There are always multiple sides to a story. Telling your side without blaming the negative reviewer helps constructively raise awareness. This helps mitigate a negative review.
- Respect personal privacy. Never make threats about revealing the reviewer’s name or pressing legal charges.
The Final Word on Removing Negative Reviews
With Reputation America, our specialists are proficient in communicating with editors of American sites that can deindex, delete, and change negative articles in nearly all mainstream media outlets (including the top 20). We offer to resolve the situation in a courteous manner that has you coming out on top. Although contacting a specialist to help you remove negative is an option, there are always steps you can take first to mediate the problem. Keeping your online image 100% clean is extremely hard in an era where everyone can voice their opinions, but that doesn’t mean you can’t turn a negative into a positive. Hopefully, these tips and a step-by-step guide on removing negative reviews can put your mind at ease.
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