Fake reviews on business rating sites seem to be a growing problem as companies look for an edge online. Not only is it unethical, it’s also illegal. However, identifying fake reviews is usually not hard, you just have to look past the initial star rating.
My Fake Review Experience
Recently, while doing a competitive online review analysis for a customer, I came across a local dentist that operates in the South Hills. I have heard of the operation before. Mainly, I heard of their reputation for running some sort of scam where they fool unwitting and trusting patients into having unnecessary procedures in order to pad the patient’s bill.
In fact, my wife has had a personal experience with this practice’s dental office located near South Hills Village. The details are not important. When she came home from the visit, she was traumatized and crying. Her face was so full of Novocain, one side was drooping like she had experienced a stroke.
She eventually went to another dentist where we found that the initial procedure was performed improperly and that the next procedure that they recommended, a root canal, was not even necessary. As I write this years later, she has still not needed one. Crooks.
I was shocked to find that this dentist office has a large amount of positive, even five star, reviews on Google +. Given my wife’s experience and the second hand accounts that other dentists had relayed to me, I knew something has to be wrong.
Looking more closely at the individual reviews, they seemed normal enough. Then I began looking into the people leaving the reviews and found that each of them had either left only one review in their Google + lifetime or, they were leaving reviews for companies all over the country.
Maybe their experience was so good that they only felt compelled this one time to leave a positive review. Maybe this dentist office’s client base is disproportionately made up of business travelers. More likely, in an effort to game the system, this dentist office is employing people to write fake reviews.
I’m inclined to believe that latter.
Hiring people to leave fake reviews is misleading and illegal. Bad reviews are an unfortunate part of business. And, sadly, people are more inclined to complain online than laud excellent service.
From a customer perspective, always look more than one place for reviews. Do some research. Usually, a company’s reviews will be similar across all mediums. If they have a disproportionate amount of positive reviews on a site, look into the individual reviewers. Did they review a company in Pittsburgh one day and Houston the next? If so, chances are that they are a paid reviewer.
Need Online Review Help?
If you are a business owner looking to improve your reviews, the best way to do that is to provide better service. Look into why you are getting bad reviews and fix the problem. In the meantime, developing a strong review and customer response strategy is critical to ensuring you get the most from online review sites.