How to Remove a Bad Review That Someone Have on Rover
When y'all're building a business, you desire to do everything you can to provide stellar products and/or services to your customers. When you operate at a loftier standard, you'll proceeds a reputation as a business that people can trust and rely on—and that reputation will continually drive new customers your way.
Online reviews play a huge part in edifice that reputation. When potential customers research your business and read glowing, v-star reviews, they're going to want to reach out and do business organization with you. But if they read a bad review (even if information technology'southward biased, unfair or completely untrue), it'southward going to exercise the contrary—and send those customers direct to your competitors.
Equally a business owner, yous want to practice everything you can to effectively bargain with negative reviews and so they don't ruin your business organisation' reputation and keep customers from working with y'all.
But what practice y'all exercise when you get an unfair or untrue comment? How exercise you handle the state of affairs? And tin y'all (or should you) take it every bit far as suing for defamation?
Contents
- Who Can You Sue Over a Bad Review?
- Can Yous Sue Review Sites Directly?
- What Tin You Practise?
- What Non to Practise
- Deal With Bad Reviews Effectively
Who Can You lot Sue Over a Bad Review?
To be honest, the answer is: It depends.
For the well-nigh part, reviews are covered under the First Amendment, which protects free speech. Additionally, 34 U.S. states have passed Anti-SLAPP (strategic lawsuits confronting public participation) laws. Anti-SLAPP is intended to prevent people or businesses from silencing or censoring their critics past intimidating them with the threat of a lawsuit.
Thanks to these protections, if a client is unhappy with your products or services, or the experiences they've had with your business, they have the right to say so—whether that be in person, over the phone, or online.
There are, however, exceptions. If a customer posts a review that is factually inaccurate or contains accusations about your business that are untrue, you may have grounds to sue the online reviewer for defamation.
The best way to distinguish between the ii? Any review that contains a customer's opinions or factual information about your business would exist covered under free speech communication. Some examples of content that would be covered under the First Amendment include:
- "That concern charges an arm and a leg!"
- "I wasn't happy with the level of service I received."
- "The customer service representative was rude."
On the other hand, any review that contains blatant factual inaccuracies that harm your business could be grounds for a defamation lawsuit. Some examples of content that might allow you to sue (bold the content is untrue) include:
- "This company does not take a license to provide their services."
- "Ane of the workers stole an expensive scout while painting my dwelling house."
- "This company charged me for services that they never delivered—and take refused to return my money."
Earlier you lot fifty-fifty consider suing, brand certain you distinguish whether the annotate would even authorize as defamation—or if information technology would be protected under the First Amendment.
Tin can You Sue Review Sites Directly?
There are certain scenarios where you would be able to sue a reviewer over a bad review (namely if it contained factual inaccuracies that harmed your business).
Simply what about the site where the review is hosted? Tin you get above the customer and sue the review site directly?
As information technology turns out, you tin't.
Under the U.S. Communications Decency Deed, websites cannot exist held liable for publishing any content written past a third party—and that includes review sites like Yelp, Google Reviews, Healthgrades, and Angie's List.
So if the review site doesn't alter or modify the content or significant of the original annotate? They're protected from any potential libel or defamation suits, which means you can't sue them.
What Tin You Do?
If you happen to run into a negative comment about your business organisation, what should you lot do? Is filing a defamation lawsuit a viable option?
The truth is, information technology takes a meaning amount of time, money and energy to rent a lawyer and bring a adjust to court in order to get a bad review removed from a review site. But, if the comment is extremely harmful to your business organisation (and y'all can testify it to be false), information technology may be worth that time, money and free energy. If not, there are other, more practical ways to deal with a bad review.
Some strategies y'all can use to effectively deal with a negative review online include:
- Asking the website to remove the online review. If someone has posted a comment that's both negative and factually inaccurate, you tin request that the website remove it past making your case that the information in the review is false. Just keep in mind that they're under no obligation to remove the review.
- Post a thoughtful, gracious response. Arguably the all-time way to deal with a negative review? Posting a thoughtful, gracious response. Address any issues brought up in the review, share how your company is working to ensure information technology doesn't happen once more and offer a solution to the customer. For example, if they had a negative client service, you might apologize and offer them a discount code for a futurity purchase.
- Generate more positive online reviews. Ane of the best means to gainsay negative reviews? With plenty of good reviews. Strive to offer the all-time products and/or services to your customers, brand sure they're satisfied and then ask them to post a review.
If you ultimately decide to move forrad with a lawsuit, it's of import to consult a lawyer immediately. And specially before you invest likewise much time, money or energy into the procedure. They can requite you deeper insights on your legal options, the viability of your instance and whether you might be able to successfully sue for damages.
What Not to Do
There are also a few things you lot definitely DON'T desire to practise when you find a negative review for your business organisation, including:
- React immediately: Reading negative comments sting. So when yous read one, your knee-jerk reaction may be to respond in the moment (e.g., by posting a comment defending yourself). Merely if you answer immediately, you may react poorly (e.g., lashing out because you feel angry or insulted). Instead, give yourself time to cool off before you write a measured response.
- Ignore the content: While it tin be difficult to read negative or critical things almost yourself or your business organization, if at that place's truth to the negative review, information technology can exist a growth opportunity. Don't immediately ignore the content of a review simply because it's negative. Instead, sit down with it. See if there's any truth to what the review says and develop a program to accost the effect moving forward.
- Retaliate: If a annotate is either insulting or spreading lies about your business, you lot may want to retaliate against the reviewer. But information technology's incredibly of import not to retaliate online because that retaliation tin come up back to haunt you—especially if you lot programme to file a defamation suit.
Here'south a real-life case:
A contractor filed a $700,000 lawsuit against a homeowner who claimed on Yelp and Angie's List that he damaged her townhouse, billed her for piece of work he never completed and stole her jewelry. Originally, the court awarded the contractor a victory and ordered the homeowner to take down the comment well-nigh theft.
Simply before going to trial, the contractor posted his own negative comments in response, claiming that since the homeowner never paid, she really stole from him.
Ultimately, the jury adamant that while the homeowner defamed the contractor, the contractor's later negative remarks besides defamed her—so no damages were awarded. Essentially, the contractor'due south online retaliation may have cost him a $700,000 settlement.
Bargain With Bad Reviews Finer
No one likes to see bad reviews for their business—especially if they're malicious, harmful or untrue. But now that you know the about constructive ways to deal with them, you'll know how to navigate the situation next time you lot come across a negative comment—whether that's by managing information technology on your ain or consulting a lawyer to move forward with a defamation suit.
This mail was updated in August, 2020.
Source: https://www.freshbooks.com/blog/can-you-sue-over-a-bad-review
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