Why Are There Bad Reviews Of Your Business In Google Maps?
By John Joyce on April 20, 2010 - Comments 2
Did you know that people can post a review of your business in Google Maps? Google also pulls reviews from other sites (Citysearch, Insiderpages) and automatically posts them to your business listing. Strangely, as the business owner, you have very little control over these reviews so you’ll have to add this to your “watch list” for online reputation management.
Sentiment Analysis is a quickly growing data set that listing services are collecting and publishing, so, what are your options when dealing with negative feedback that finds its way into your business listing?
- If a review was posted directly to your business listing in Google, you can flag it and then you’ll have to prove that the post violates published terms and conditions.
- Are you able to identify the person who posted the negative comment? If so, reach out to them, listen to their feedback and try to address their concerns. Ask them if they would be willing to change or delete their negative review.
- Google suggests you contact the webmaster of the 3rd party sites if the negative review wasn’t posted directly to your business listing. Some of these sites do allow you to post a “response from management” but that won’t show up in Google Maps. (Google does not allow you to post this type of response)
- Google lists 5-6 reviews so you can solicit new reviews from satisfied customers in an effort to push the negative ones off the page. Be careful, though; too many reviews being posted in a short period of time will trigger spam alerts and hurt your ranking.
Obviously, it helps to have a solid customer support system in place and an easy process for sharing feedback directly with you so these types of issues are not broadcast to the general public. Reputation management is an important aspect of your daily marketing life and should be treated as such.
Comments (2)
Most consumers look at reviews of a business online before they decide to do a transaction. This it true for online stores, restaurants, spas, contractors or any type of small business. People want to know what your customers think about your business. The world has changed a lot. Information that was once hard to come by is just a Goggle search away. Recently, Google announced Google Places which includes listings for over 4 million small businesses. Most likely, your business is listed and available to be reviewed by your customers.
Is this new trend a bad thing? It depends on how you react to it. If you are attentive, reviews can be your most powerful word of mouth sales tool. Now a happy customer can tell thousands via Google Maps instead of just one or two in your local community. Also, unhappy customers can give you feedback, which you can immediately correct which often turns a dissatisfied customer into a strong brand advocate for your business. If you ignore reviews, just the opposite may happen. Bad reviews will go without a response and many happy customers will fade away without writing a great review.
At RatePoint we say embrace reviews and actively use a review service for your site that allows you to solicit reviews and to attempt to solve negative ones before they get posted. Google Maps uses reviews from many reputable sources. If you participate in a reputation management solution or use a review platform to engage your customers, those reviews can show up on Google Maps and help you gain more customers and proactively improve your business. A bad review isn’t the end of the world. In today’s ever-increasing transparent web, consumers expect you to make mistakes, but the more you engage them, the better your business will perform and appear for everyone else to see.
Neal,
Thanks for the great post – I know it will be helpful to our readers!
- John