How to Remove a Negative Avvo Review
Try as you might, it’s impossible to completely protect yourself from a negative review potentially being published to your online profile. These are difficult to handle and often require a frustrating process of back-and-forth between you and a customer service team or two. For a busy lawyer, dealing with negative reviews isn’t too high on the list of things that time needs to be spent on, even if it is on a lawyer-specific review platform like Avvo.
Avvo Wants You to Look Great (Despite Negative Reviews)
A lawyer’s reputation is everything: it’s what potential clients look at when making their decision. They’re going to look at the type of cases you take on, your ratio of wins, where you went to school, and more. However, one thing that potential clients absolutely take into consideration is the reviews left on your profile.
So, when a negative review appears on your Avvo profile – what can you do?
Respond to the Negative Avvo Review
This is something we recommend to every client of ours, even if it’s a positive review that’s been left on your profiles. Whenever you respond to a review, the next person who is doing research is able to see how well you’re able to communicate and respond to potentially difficult situations.
So, when a negative review comes through – take a second to reflect. Does this person’s name seem family? Were they a client of yours?
If you’d like more information about how you can respond to a negative review appropriately, check out this blog.
Use Avvo’s Review Process
Unlike other review sites, like Google and Facebook, Avvo has set up a slightly longer process to publishing reviews that try and narrow down the amount of fake reviews.
To leave a review on Avvo, users must sign up with a unique account that contains some of their personal information. That way, when someone leaves a negative review, both Avvo and the lawyer who received the review has some additional information to investigate. For other websites, like Google My Business, this process would be almost impossible due to the sheer size of those websites, but also a user’s ability to make up an obviously fake name and leave the review under that pseudonym.
Further, Avvo does not publish reviews immediately, even if they are positive ones. This delay allows them to review each review and decide if it is appropriate to post.
Dispute Your Negative Review
Avvo is also one of the most professional-friendly review websites because it allows lawyers to dispute a negative review, which will prompt Avvo to pull the review to conduct their investigation.
According to their posted rules, Avvo claims:
“Request that the review be put through our dispute process. If you believe the review has not come from an actual or potential client of yours, we will contact the reviewer and ask them to confirm that they were in fact a real or potential client, and give them the option to edit or delete the review. During the dispute, the review will not appear on your profile. If the reviewer responds and confirms the review, it will be reposted to your profile with any changes specified by the reviewer.”
Aside from disputing a negative review, and providing Avvo with evidence that this individual was in fact not your client, there is no way to click a button and remove a review. To circumvent any issues with a negative review pulling down your overall rating, make sure you’re actively asking clients for their feedback and a review on your designated professional profile (like Avvo).
