Can you remove a Google review?

You see the only time I can foresee that you would even think about removing a Google review is when you feel it would or is having a damaging effect on your business, in other words it’s been written by a disgruntled customer. And for the sake of this article let’s assume it is a real review and not fake or a malicious one written by one of your competitors . (By the way I don’t think this happens half as much as some business owners think it does, as Google has tighten its grip on this type of activity.)
So let’s look at this in a different light, you own or manage a local business which trades locally, now your customers as you can appreciate are all different and have a variety of opinions on what constitutes a good service or product experience or the type of customer service that turns them on or not, so can you really expect to please 100% of everyone that uses your business??
Of course not, it is just unrealistic, and to exaggerate this point, let’s imagine you have been in business for 10 years, would you have pleased everyone you have come into contact with? If humans are involved there will always be mistakes - it’s called human error.
So putting this into context, logic states that at some point there’s a good chance, if you haven’t already, that you’ll receive a bad Google review, but is the best solution to look at removing it?
I have never come across an example of where Google themselves, after being approached by a company, have removed a review, so that doesn’t look like a variable route to take.
Apparently there are companies on the web, that specialise in this sort of service, by changing this, removing that, with the purpose of trying to effectively outsmart some of the greatest minds on the planet at Google HQ and somehow remove the review/s. Their methods can’t be in accordance with Google’s best practice and procedures so I am not even sure I like the idea what these companies are promoting (that’s just my view!!)
Wouldn’t a better solution be to take the comments onboard, reply back to the Google review, and make sure you get your happy satisfied customers to write positive reviews about their experiences, bearing in mind here, that 99.5% of your customers should be satisfied with your service so it shouldn't be too difficult to find some evangelists to restore the balance back in your favour, hey the negative review may even make the positive ones more creditable because as we have discovered it’s just not feasible to be 100% brilliant all of the time, and of course your potential customers are aware of this also.
So how do you start the fight back, and get your customers to write Google reviews for you ?
Well, you could very simply ask them, if they say yes, then you might want to send them an email with your direct link to the review section on your ‘Google My Business’ page. If you would like to be sending out these emails, but would never get round to doing it on a regular basis, then why are you not looking at automating the solution, there’s lots of companies offering this type of service.
If you think it would help, and you’re not already one of our customers then I’ll be very happy to show you around the solution we offer small business owners in the UK, (sorry I couldn’t resist the plug!!). Just click here to schedule a demo.
Whatever action you decide to take, your reputation is the biggest thing that will affect your changes of success on the internet today, so whatever you decide, decide to do something and don’t leave it to chance!!