It is not surprising nowadays for the grievances of unhappy customers and ex-employees to be played out by maliciously reviewing businesses online.
There is a fine line between constructive reviews based on fact and hateful lying based on nothing but anger. In this post, we will try to help you to remove the bad reviews on any platform like Yelp and make things right again.
Getting a bad review on Yelp can feel like a punch to the gut for small business owners, particularly if it was unfair. It’s truly annoying and sometimes it shows like there is nothing you can do about it. But wait! There might be.
A Yelp review can be removed. But, remember business owners cannot directly eliminate them. Only Yelp can remove reviews from its platform. So, you must be aware of the individuals or institutes who claim that they can remove the Yelp bad reviews for you; don’t trust them.
Before we know the way to remove or flag false reviews on yelp, have a quick glance at Yelp’s content guidelines (https://www.yelp.com/guidelines) and regulations. Here are the grounds for deleting false reviews from Yelp::
Grounds for Reporting and Deleting Bad/False Yelp Review
- When a business review is not from a customer’s view
- When a review is opposing an existing review;
- When the reviewer is not talking about personal experience;
- When the reviews are posted on the wrong business page;
- If the reviews are copied;
- When the reviews talk about business policies, service contributions, or policies.
- Reviewers cannot post the names or other personal details of the business employees they communicate with.
For example, they cannot mention the name or address of a restaurant’s waiter to the review.
On these grounds, you can remove the review on Yelp. Although, there is an exception to this rule. If the review includes the personal details of a business that has the name of the employer, the use of names is asked.
Example: If the business is named “Y” Realty, you can mention Y’s name in your review.
Other than that reviews that involve lewdness, threats, hate speech or any images of bigotry can be flagged and removed. In case the review is speaking about unusual things, they can also be flagged or eliminated.
Nevertheless, reviewers are justified if they use abuse or colorful language. You can’t dispute that if it is the case.
If your customer’s review is clearly making any of these violations, you can report them for removal. Consequently, these cases will be analyzed by Yelp moderators, and action will be taken accordingly. Yelp likewise declares that in some cases, the removal of these reviews will be automated.
Way To Remove Bad Reviews:
Reply to the Unhappy Reviewer:
This is likely the least untidy and genuinely gainful approach to deal with removing bad reviews on Yelp: react to the person and help change that awful impression.
This will not only help you with getting a chance at improving your online review score or star ratings, however, but it will also leave a positive impact on your other (potential) clients.
If your reviewer is not happy with the services you are offering, you can always try to correct their experiences by attempting to give them a better experience.
You can understand it better with the example, if you are a landscaping organization, you can provide to redo your project and add in a gift coupon at your local Ikea.
How to Report the Bad Review on Yelp?
In a case, if you want to report the false review on yelp, you may follow the procedure:
- Go to the review that you need to remove
- Then click on the “flag” icon at the bottom of the review.
- Press it
This way, you can flag the false review. Read this article for more details: www.yelp-support.com/article/How-do-I-report-a-review
A Few Myths About Removing False Reviews:
Undoubtedly, negative Yelp reviews can ruin the business reputation badly. That’s why business owners make lots of effort to remove them.
But in all these, you must remember a few things because there are many myths about removing bad reviews:
Most of the people think that they can delete reviews from Yelp by paying a good amount. But this is completely wrong. Yelp is defended by the First Amendment and the Communications Decency Act.
This indicates they have very little incentive to remove bad customer reviews. Additionally, Yelp has won many large lawsuits relating to online review removal, showing they are protected by current laws.
