With the rapid pace of digital transformation experienced over the past couple of years, online shopping habits have shifted, and this trend is set to stay. In addition, barriers to entry in creating e-commerce stores and new products have never been lower. There is increased competition when it comes to shopping online which means more choice for consumers.
Increasingly, online shoppers turn to feedback and reviews from other customers to verify and validate their choices. But many customers may be cautious. Are the reviews real? Are they overly positive or negative? Is it realistic that 100% of a brand’s reviews get five stars?
For businesses, fake negative reviews can be devastating and cause significant issues for a brand. They’re also illegal in some countries, and the UK is considering following suit. Let’s look at ways businesses can keep fake reviews at bay.
Identifying fake reviews
Brands and customers alike can do some due diligence to spot a fake review.
- Check the date of the review(s)
If a business or a competitor has invested in overly positive or overly negative reviews, they’re likely to appear over a short period of time. If a brand generally receives two or three reviews per month, a plethora of 1-star or 5-star reviews in the space of a month should be treated with suspicion.
- Look at the profile of the reviewer
On the majority of review platforms, a person will need to create a profile or a user name before leaving a review. Take a look at the profile and keep an eye out for:
- A relatively generic name such as ‘Mark Jones’ or ‘Anne Smith’
- A display name that’s a random string of letters and numbers
- Lack of a profile picture
- Any other reviews left (and suspicious similarities in wording or phrasing)
- No reviews were left before this one
While this isn’t applicable to all reviewers, the following can give some indication of mass-generated review accounts if other warning signs are there too.
- Spelling and grammar
Often, review mills – where reviews can be purchased – are based in countries where English isn’t the native language. Frequent spelling, grammar, and wording errors may indicate that the review isn’t real. Consider this in conjunction with other signs of a fake review.
- Check your CRM
This is more of a tip for businesses, but it’s important to check your CRM to see if any customer details left by the reviewer match those held in your system. If you don’t have any data to suggest that the name left by the reviewer ever purchased or interacted with you, it’s possible that this is a fake review.
- Find the detail
Genuine reviews usually include some level of detail about their product or experience and what they did or didn’t like. Fake reviews often contain little detail and will use generic feedback.
Managing fake reviews
None of the signs of a fake review are hard-and-fast rules. If you think you’ve received a fake review, make sure you reply to it. You would always respond to negative reviews, so you should always respond to suspected fake reviews too.
The review will be available publicly and you can skew your brand reputation and spoil your digital marketing efforts by leaving a review without a response. Sending a tailored response to fake reviews, such as the one below, helps any prospects who see it to take the negative feedback with a pinch of salt, and possibly doubt its authenticity.
Try something like:
‘Hello [reviewer name],
Thank you for taking the time to leave a review of your experience with us. We understand that it can be disappointing when [X] happens. However, we have no record of your experience with us and we’ve been unable to verify your identity in our customer data.
Please contact us at [X] immediately so that we can work with you to find a solution to your problem.’
In the meantime, you can flag this dubious feedback with the review facilitator for internal review. If they find that this was indeed a fake review, they can remove it. This means the star rating and comments will no longer be visible.
Conclusion
Identifying fake reviews is quite straightforward if you use due diligence and some common sense. It’s possible to avoid fake reviews by using a closed third-party review platform where only verified purchasers can leave ratings.
However, this is not available on social media or Google My Business reviews, so you’ll need to adopt a response framework either way. Don’t hesitate to flag suspected fake reviews with the platforms themselves as they often have a comprehensive system to uncover and remove fraudulent feedback.