How to deal with negative reviews on review sites?

Contents:

1. What to do with negative reviews on review sites: general information;
2. Resolution of the issue through the court;
3. What can be regarded as defamatory information? 
4. What else can affect the customer's desire to buy?
5. How to deal with inappropriate content?

How to deal with negative reviews on review sites? 

Every company at least once faced a situation when negative reviews about its activities appeared on the sites. This is bad for the business reputation of the supplier of goods and services. Potential customers after reading negative reviews will be sure that it is better not to deal with this company. On the other hand, the reason for the appearance of negativity in many cases has nothing to do with poor work organization. "Well-wishers" among competitors use negative reviews as a tool to fight for buyers.

How to proceed in such a case? Let's consider a typical example. Company X found mixed reviews of its work on websites. The management considered them to be information that tarnishes the business reputation, therefore, decided to take measures to remove negative reviews from the site. Company X sent complaints to the hosting provider, search engines, and the site owner. None of the claims were granted. The owner of the testimonial site stated that he agreed to remove the testimonials in exchange for a hefty payment.

Resolving the issue through the court

After confirming that the pre-trial settlement measures were not working, Company X filed a claim with the arbitration court. The owner of the review site was listed as the respondent. In the statement of claim, X's management indicated that negative reviews were false information. In addition to satisfying the requirements for the removal of reviews, the plaintiff sought compensation for damage to business reputation.

Unfortunately, the court refused to side with Company X and rendered a negative decision in the case. As a basis for making such a decision, it was indicated that reviews cannot be considered as untrue information. Only facts that did not take place in reality during the period of time referred to in the review can be considered as such.

In the opinion of the court, the review is an evaluative opinion of the user that the quality of the company's services does not meet the client's expectations. At the same time, the site's functionality allows you to leave comments under the reviews. Company X was able to refute the user's claim that the service was not of high quality.

As for the site owner, he is not obliged to immediately remove negative reviews without a corresponding court decision. The site owner does not have the ability to check whether the information is reliable, since the information is posted by third parties. If the site owner, on his own initiative, begins to conduct such a check or unconditionally deletes the review, this will be regarded as a violation of the freedom of speech law.

Thus, if the business owner did not like the feedback about his work, which was posted on a third-party resource, the company has no right to force the site owner to delete this information without a court decision. The court must consider the case and confirm that the information in the response is indeed information that is untrue and defames the business reputation. In this case, the owner of the review site is responsible for the execution of the court decision, that is, the removal of the negative review.

If you encounter a similar problem, we recommend contacting our company. A4 Law Firm will provide a competent legal assessment of the situation and offer the best solution.

What can be regarded as defamatory information?

In some cases, the company has the ability to legally force the site owner to remove the review, as it is defamatory information and misleads readers. Such a recall contains a direct accusation of bad faith and the commission of criminal acts by the company. For example, the review says that Company X is a bunch of swindlers who deceived all customers, arranged a scam, so the management cannot be trusted and must be brought to justice. A similar example is the accusation of poor performance by all companies that produce a certain type of product. For example, the review said that Company X and all other building material manufacturers are crooks who sell worthless goods.

What else can affect the customer's desire to buy?

In addition to assessing the brand, potential customers pay attention to reviews of work in the company. There are special sites where employees share their impressions of the employer. Typically, every organization has disgruntled employees who have been fired. They are the ones who leave angry reviews. A large number of them negatively affects the perception of the brand by future customers, although in fact, the employer review does not reflect the characteristics of the product or service in any way.

How to deal with inappropriate content?

The first thing you can do is try to convince customers to share their impressions of the company. Surely there will be many more satisfied customers than dissatisfied customers. The second way is to push out unwanted content from search results for the right queries.