What to do??
Full Name:
Tim
Forums:
It has happened to my company for the fourth time now. It happened 1 time last year and 3 times now with last week being the most recent. I have talked around the supply houses and to a couple of other small business in our service field and it appears to be on an upward trend. My buddy Roger has had it happen to him 6 times this year alone.
A new customer calls for a repair at their home you do your business. Make out a bill and collect. There is a service charge/call of $79.00 and any repairs. The $79.00 covers showing up and finding the problem. This may take 5 minuets or 3 hours, depending on the problem. Usually it takes about 15 minuets to really get to the remedy.
That's when they tell you, I don't want to pay the service call. If you don't take the $79 I will blow up your google account with bad reviews.
After this I looked this dude up and he had 19 reviews and a couple were bad to other service company's.
Did he fuck them over too. Were they legit and getting screwed?
Anyone hear of this modern day extortion, What whould you do?
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Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: New & Improved
I would charge $0 and mark it
I would charge $0 and mark it up to "marketing". I would also jack up his system with no trail of evidence.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: skyjunk
Our company fears these
Our company fears these people, we will do about anything to avoid the bad google review
we even address them if they pop up out of nowhere
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Ken D.
That's too bad. Do the
That's too bad. Do the websites where the reviews are left allow you to post responses to the reviews?
If you don't take the service call what is he going to do? If he complains that you wanted to charge the $79 for the diagnostic, you could post a polite response stating that you are providing a service, your time and the time of your employees is valuable, and its your company's policy to charge for the initial service call.
If he makes up some bad review suggesting you actually did the work and screwed up, then he would be leaving a fake review and you could take action on that. People leaving reviews have to certify that the review is based on real experiences.
But whatever you do, don't give into the asshole and come out. If he is that bad right out the gate, you know any job you do for him will likely end badly.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Tim
I feel writing back and forth
I feel writing back and forth is petty and who is going to believe who?? The bottom line is when people are looking for a service company all they do is look at the Google star rating.
Bam 2 stars move on.
I feel it's extortion.
I have been thinking about raising my repairs up 20% and not even charge a service call. Roger did this and he had a dude tell him if he doesn't lower his bill by at least 10% he will fuck his reviews. Roger, who is a loose cannon to start with, told him to go fuck himself and pay in full. Hour later the asshole posted a shit review including about Roger using profanity.
It seems the ones doing this are 20-30 year olds.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Tim
Had a CRAZY old man write to
Had a CRAZY old man write to BBB about 4 years ago. He had no basis for anything he was CRAZY. The people at the BBB even told me the man is not right.
I went from a A+ rating to a B rating and it took 18 months to "straighten" shit out.
All he did was write one rambling letter with zero follow up.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Bucky Badger
What about responding to
What about responding to their reviews and calling them out on their bullshit? I can’t imagine how pissed I’d be as a business owner if customers pulled this shit.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Tim
You have read google reviews
You have read google reviews before.
he said she said
I just move on, never knowing it could be some assholes scam
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Bucky Badger
Yup I’ve read review sections
Yup I’ve read review sections before, it doesn’t bring out our best and brightest.
I’m not saying this is a good solution, but there’s gotta be a company out there who will go through your reviews and challenge, reply or get them deleted for you. And yeah, it all sounds like extortion.
Maybe business’ should start a website where they review customers.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: skyjunk
I may be mistaken but the
I may be mistaken but the reviews, or bad reviews may also effect your que in the search engines, and I believe that is our main fear, I could be wrong but that top spot on searches is the Beverly Hills of internet Real Estate
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Tim
You can get your reviews
You can get your reviews cleaned up for $49 a month or a $700 fee and then they tell you you can buy positive reviews from people in my area 2-5 or 10 a month for X amount of $
To me that is even more fucked.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Tim
True on the search que
True on the search que
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Tim
90% of my business is word of
90% of my business is word of mouth alone.
Thank God
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Bucky Badger
yeesh yeah sounds scammy all
yeesh yeah sounds scammy all-around. mafia type shit. is google the one offering to clean up the reviews for a fee?? :)
Google: “nice business you have there, it would be a shame if anything bad happened to it. if you give us $50 a month we’ll keep an eye on it for you.”
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: skyjunk
Yea we have shops and sub
Yea we have shops and sub shops across the state except in Miami Area and the panhandle. So we like to be on top of those searches.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Tim
No it was an aftermarket
No it was an aftermarket company
they do all kinds of internet adjustments
I paid then $350.00 to fix a phone situation were the phone company plastered my personal phone number all over the interweb and it was summer time
My personal phone was ringing day and night and not at the office.
They got rid of it all in a very timely manner
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Briank
We got a bad Google review
We got a bad Google review because the reviewer wasn’t allowed to take photos. It would have been a FERPA violation had we let him.
The guy had no affiliation with us, nor did he even care to learn. All he wanted was a picture, and he was pissed because he didn’t get it.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Mice elf
I am someone who reads those
I am someone who reads those reviews and sometimes makes purchase decisions based on them. Admittedly, I usually go straight to the negative reviews first. Most asshole customers will easily out themselves here, and it’s usually pretty obvious. The buyers remorse folks stick out pretty easily as well, and sometimes there is actually a legitimate complaint. More than two or three of these, unanswered, and I click the back button.
but when a business owner takes the time to respond intelligently and offer a solution or reasonable explanation, it also shows. And in these cases usually I defer to the businessman who responds (vs deferring to the customer who is complaining) unless there seems to be a pattern of specific complaints with a particular business, and I simply avoid the ones who don’t respond at all. YMMV
Beyond that, I feel for you. What a racket. I know you run a straight business and people usually suck.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Bucky Badger
Yeah best of luck to all of
Yeah best of luck to all of the business owners who have to deal with that shit.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: El Nino
I would tell him to go for it
I would tell him to go for it and then go here and flag it
https://support.google.com/business/answer/4596773?from=cuf_business_ina...
These days it will wash out unless you are a bad business. Having people clean up bad stuff is fine but don't ever pay for good reviews. Google hates anyone who tries to game their almighty algorithm, and once they think you are trying to do that you might as well just post your company on the dark web. You will never be found.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Tim
I used that site for google
I used that site for google repair and it went nowhere
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: nebulous nelly
Collect the fee when the tech arrives.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Thumbkinetic
Maybe it actually is
Maybe it actually is extortion. The cyber whatsits are reshaping law.
At the very least, a fake letter on a convincing letterhead is in order.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Ken D.
>>>>The cyber whatsits are
>>>>The cyber whatsits are reshaping law.
I have worked on plenty of litigation involving allegations of malicious and defamatory reviews of businesses on public message boards.
Most of it I can't talk about, but one is public record and received some media attention. Allegedly, a former disgruntled employee of a hotel on the coast wrote a scathing TripAdvisor review about his former employer stating that the manager "smoked weed," the maintenance guy was drunk, and the lady behind the reception counter was having phone sex. I don't know why that would be bad for a cheap hotel on the coast, but the owner got super pissed and wanted to sue the poster. But the dude used a false name so the hotel owner sued the unknown poster in state court for defamation as a "John Doe." The hotel owner then issued a subpoena to TripAdvisor to hand over their records that would identify the culprit, but TripAdvisor objected and the court found it didn't have jurisdiction over the California company to enforce the subpoena and the case was dropped.