What's the best way to deal with getting review-bombed on Google reviews?

Question

I've been running a private business for several years now (a wedding planning company), and was averaging a score of around 4 on Google reviews up until recently. At some point i ran into a pair of obnoxious customers that weren't satisfied, which is ok, but the problem is that they left ~80 1 star reviews in a span of 3-4 days only, which dropped my score to around 2. Seeing how this is a wedding planning company, and business isn't conducted on a daily basis, i can realistically get around 10-15 reviews average per year, or a couple per month. Therefore. there isn't a shred of doubt in my mind that this is the work of the aforementioned customers. It's also impossible to just wait and let the score even out over time, for the same reason.
What's the best way to deal with this? Should i just disable the Google ratings from showing up? Is there a way to reset the score and start over? Is that even allowed? I honestly have no clue what to do other than make 100 throwaway accounts to remedy the situation, which is really not something i intend to do.
Any advice is appreciated. 
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

get google and explain everything. some of the reviews are probably just trolls

Answer 2

Contact Google and explain. They can probably see clearly as you that many of the reviews are fake.

Answer 3

If these are honest reviews who are reviewing their experiences at the wedding, there is nothing you can do.

- friends and family of the bride and groom telling their experiences of the event is part of the review process..



If these are fake accounts, you are free to sue for defamation of character.  As long as you can prove it - having intuition about where the reviews came from is not legal grounds.

- it would be illegal for you to make 100 throwaway accounts.  And do you think we are so stupid that we wouldn't know?



You should start by contacting google.

Also, I think you need to change something with your business practices, most likely your contract process and setting clear expectation (that's usually the issue with event planners) = one bad review among many that I can tell is "you can't make everyone happy" is one thing - but there is no way I'm hiring an event planner with 40+ reviews and an average score of 4.

Answer 4

You could try contacting Google Reviews, but it's very, very difficult to get them to edit content like that.



Does the date of the review show?   If yes, there are no smart people who are going to think you had 80 mad customers in a short period of time.  Any reasonably intelligent reader is going to recognize those as sock puppet reviews. 



You could always contact an attorney, but that usually doesn't get you very far when it comes to online reviews and can sometimes make it worse.  



I've had a few nutters like that over the years.   The person usually eventually deletes their rants.   My theory is that they post those rants in order to hold the business hostage by pressuring them into a refund (or whatever it is they want).



What do these people want?    Are they being unreasonable?   Consider how badly you want good reviews.   Some customers have a point (even if you disagree with them).   Others are absolutely awful and should not be indulged just on principle even if it means sucking up bad reviews. 

Answer 5

When I leave a negative review on Yelp or Google, I am always contacted immediately by the business.  The good ones solve my issue immediately and I always then take down the negative review without this being requested.   For example, I sent a rug to be cleaned and repaired and for 6 months they did not respond to my requests for it.  Within minutes of my negative review, they called and asked when they could deliver it.



The bad ones offer me money in return for taking down my review.  I tell them that I do not take bribes and leave my negative review firmly in place.