How to spot and deal with fake online reviews of your business

Duplicates

If you receive a large number of reviews that were all left on the same day, that is usually a red flag, especially if they all follow a similar theme.

A lack of detail

Not every customer is going to leave a lengthy, detailed review about you, but if a review says "poor service" and not much else, it may not be genuine. A discerning customer who has taken the time to leave feedback is unlikely to leave such a short review.

Over-enthusiasm

Over-enthusiastic reviews should be treated with caution too. According to research from Cornell University, reviews that contain more verbs than nouns and use pronouns frequently, such as “me” and “I”, are more likely to be fake.

Poor spelling and grammar

Many of the people who write paid-for reviews don’t operate in the country of the business that’s being reviewed, so sometimes their grammar, spelling and punctuation is poor. This acts as a good clue as to whether their reviews are genuine or not.

A reviewer’s track record

On some review platforms, you can click on the reviewer’s profile and view the feedback they’ve left for other businesses. If they only ever leave glowing five-star or brutal one-star reviews, their feedback might not be trustworthy.

Fortunately, once you’ve identified a fake review, there are steps you can take to address the problem, which I’ve highlighted below:

• Take care of your digital presence: Try to make monitoring and managing your digital presence business part of your routine, especially your Google "My Business" page, as this will often be one of the first places customers visit to research your provider.
• Check your database: One easy way to check whether a review is genuine or not is to search for the reviewer’s name in your customer database. If there’s no match, they may not be a real customer.
• Always reply: Always reply publicly to a review – not only because their complaint might be genuine, but so anyone considering booking a holiday with you can see your response. If you don’t recognise the reviewer as a customer, state that in your response, but try not be accusatory. Direct them to your customer service team or spokesperson and ask for more details.
• Report suspected fakes: If a reviewer hasn’t been in touch with you since you replied to their review, some review sites will let you flag or report feedback for removal. If the fake review has been left on your Google "My Business" page, then you can report this through Google’s own interface; however, you’ll need to prove that the review was not left by a genuine customer. Remember to report both positive and negative fake reviews, as both can damage your reputation.

The chances are you won’t be able to get every fake review removed, so it’s best to focus on collecting genuine feedback to show potential customers that you can be trusted with their holiday booking and that you take customer concerns seriously.

The best way to do this is to invite your customers to leave a review once they have made a booking with you.

Rather than seeing, finding and stopping fake reviews as a defensive exercise, try to take this as an opportunity to showcase the very best of your business.

By responding courteously to all your reviews, you demonstrate to potential customers that you can be trusted to listen to and understand any concerns they have around booking their holiday with you.

In fact, your reviews page becomes another way to build positive sentiment towards your business and is a shop window for you to showcase just why an astute purchaser should book their getaway with you.