As a business, if you get desperate for good reviews, it’s very common to get the urge to take action to brighten the picture for your company by posting fake reviews. The urge to ride this wicked beast often rears it’s ugly head after you’ve already been slammed by one or more negative reviews or comments online, or you woke up one day and realized not having good reviews is a bad thing – but don’t know how to get them.
After getting blasted in one or more reviews or dissed in social media, some businesses ignore all that. They “go ostrich” and act as if it never happened. The problem is that self-denial does nothing to make any of it any better. In fact, it almost always makes things worse.
This is where the urge to create fake reviews often kicks in.
In general this is because the Internet changed or affected most everything in one way or the other, including giving a lot more power to consumers. Their voices can now be heard and they really like it that way. Consumers are now more empowered.
Some businesses will go so far as to attempt to make things right, but the reality of their attempt is often a very weak acknowledgement of the customer being upset – with little or nothing actually done to make it right.
This invariably makes things worse as the wronged customer get’s more inflamed. Plus, to make matters worse, the average person reading the review can usually place themselves in the position of the offended customer and see through the veiled attempt to “fix” the situation.
Few things turn away new business more than a company that doesn’t properly take care of upset customers.
The real problem to be solved is often in getting the business to do what the customer feels makes it right – not continuing to protect the ego of the business or business owner who doesn’t want to set an example for other people to take advantage of him or his business.
The optimum solution often lies somewhere in between as a compromise between the two parties – leaning toward making the customer happy more than a temporary loss to the business.
It’s when these types of situations go unresolved that a business feels compelled to fake reviews in an effort to improve their reputation
Keeping your integrity in tact
People are often closest to compromising their integrity and ethics when they’ve exhausted most all other avenues on their own and feel they have no other choice but to cross that line. But you must always stop and reflect for a moment (or as long as it takes to not do it) on what can happen if you do choose to cross the line with an attempt to manipulate review scores.
The resulting effects of trying to “game” and manipulate a review system that continues to get better and better at spotting exactly the types of activities you may be considering is a big mistake.
The profile you use to make the review could be banned. Your IP adddress or the computer, tablet, or phone you use to post the fake review might be recognized. Using a fake profile may only delay the system from putting the pieces together and finding out who you are as there are more ways to track computer users than you may realize.
Once your fake reviews are discovered, your business listing itself could be pushed way down the listings or even be removed altogether.
Remember to never cave in to the urge to create fake reviews. You can’t delete bad reviews (although the site you post them on can if they so choose) and you can’t ethically create them. Instead, consider what you can do to get more good reviews – like in the services we provide.
Doing so will raise your Reputation Review Score and dilute the bad reviews in a variety of ways.
One way is that with more good reviews, the bad ones will become less emphasized as “unusual situations” – not the norm. This is even more the case when it’s clear you have had interactions with the reviewer in an attempt to resolve the issue.
Another way is by continuing to get more and more good reviews, the bad reviews get pushed further down the timeline as most review sites display them in date-specific order.
So if you’re considering faking reviews for your business, stop it! It’s not healthy for your business, for your integrity and it definitely bends your karma the wrong way.
Want help getting 5-star reputation for your business? Use our contact tabs to the right to set up a time to talk us through your situation. We’ll explain our solutions and your options and you can decide from there.