Let’s say you’re a business owner who just had an amazing interaction with a customer. You do your due diligence and ask if they would leave you a review on Google and they tell you they absolutely will. Then a couple of days later, you log on to your Google My Business dashboard to read their glowing review. It’s everything you ever expected, but another review suddenly catches your eye. This time, it’s a negative review, and what’s worse is that it’s from a customer you don’t recognize ever working with.
This can definitely ruin your day, but, luckily, there’s a process in place to flag a review for removal with Google, and as a business owner there are steps you can take to manage these types of reviews with grace. Let’s get into it.
In this post, you’re gonna learn:
- How to Remove Google Reviews
- How to Seek Help on Reviews on the Google My Business Forum
- How to Tweet to Google My Business to ask for help with removing a review
So break down what you can do when you’re faced with the situation we described above.
1. How to Remove Google Reviews
The process to actually remove a review on Google isn’t a quick one. As much as you might want to, you aren’t going to find a simple “Delete” button next to the reviews you don’t like. The primary way to get the process started is to contact Google about the review you are concerned about and let them take it from there.
Just know that when it comes to removing a Google Review, it’s more likely to happen if the review is fraudulent or violates Google’s review policy. Online reviews are not likely to be removed simply because they are negative.
In your Google My Business dashboard with your reviews, click on the three dots in the top right corner that get you to more options.
From that menu, you want to select “Flag an Inappropriate” and from there you can let Google know why it is you are concerned about the review. Just understand that in the end, it will ultimately be up to the team at Google to determine if the review you are flagging should stay or go.
Since that’s the case, it emphasizes the importance of responding to all of your reviews, which brings us to our next point. Read on!
2. How to Seek Help on Reviews on the Google My Business Forum
Oftentimes, it’s helpful to seek advice from a community that can relate to what you’re going through. That’s where the community forum for Google My Business comes into play. In an instant, you’re surrounded by advice. Best of all, you’ll find feedback from other business owners, but also from moderators of the team behind the Google My Business platform to answer any questions you might have.
To get to the community, head over to: https://support.google.com/business/community
From there, you can use the search bar to type in the issue you are dealing with. For example, a quick search for ‘how to remove a Google review’ will present you with a list of helpful articles, forum posts, and community answers to help you out with your specific situation.
Here’s an example of someone posting a concern about removing a Google review:
3. How to Tweet to Google My Business to ask for help with removing a review
Each month, Twitter has hundreds of millions active users. Millions of tweets go out from businesses who are interacting directly with their customers. Well, if you can engage with your customers this way, surely you can also reach out to Google for assistance with removing a Google review.
The handle to tweet at is @GoogleMyBiz and you can easily tweet at them publicly about your concern or question. Alternatively, you can send them a direct message by clicking the ‘envelope’ icon on the @GoogleMyBiz profile page.
Looking at the ‘Tweets & Replies’ portion of their profile, you can see that the Google My Business team is answering a bunch of questions that people are sending to them pretty much throughout the entire day.
Tips to Remember
It very common as a business owner to see a negative review or possibly a fraudulent review, and immediately want to delete that review. But in the world of online reputation management, online reviews are important for the public to gauge the experiences of others who have dealt with your business. They help paint an honest picture of what it’s like to be one of your customers. That’s why Google simply doesn’t allow you to easily erase the reviews you don’t want others to see. Instead, of a review is in violation of Google’s review policies, or is possibly fraudulent or fake, there’s a process in place to flag that review as inappropriate.
Google also just recently launched a new form for business owners who think a review is fradulant or breaks the Terms of Service. This form is known as the “Business Redressal Complaint Form,” and you can enter more information to try and have a review taken down.
Running a successful business can be a rollercoaster, and many times the journey isn’t perfect. That’s why understanding the best way to deal with negative reviews and how to stay on top of and respond to the reviews you receive, will make you a better business owner.
