How to remove Google reviews: a step by step guide

In the jewellery industry, online reviews are incredibly important. 

Positive feedback builds trust and attracts clients, while negative reviews can damage your reputation. As a jewellery store owner, managing your online presence effectively is essential – it’s the first point of contact that many potential customers will have with your business.

But sometimes things don’t quite go to plan and you receive a bad review. This may be a legitimate complaint, a mistake or even a malicious action by a disgruntled employee or a competitor. However it happens, it’s likely that you want to minimise i’s impact on your brand’s reputation.

This guide provides a step-by-step approach to understanding and removing negative Google reviews.

Understanding and Identifying Inappropriate Google Reviews

Before attempting to remove a review, it is crucial to understand Google’s review policies and how these affect whether you will or will not be able to remove a review.

Reviews that breach these policies can be flagged for removal:

1. Inappropriate Content:
   • Harassment, hate speech, offensive remarks, and personal information disclosure.
2. Deceptive Practices:
   • Fake endorsements, identity fraud, spreading false information, and misleading representations.
3. Explicit and Sensitive Material:
   • Profanity, explicit sexual content, adult-oriented themes, and graphic violence.
4. Prohibited and Harmful Content:
   • Restricted items, hazardous content, illegal activities, child safety violations, and terrorism-related content.
5. Quality and Relevance:
   • Irrelevant comments, advertisements, solicitations, and nonsensical or repetitive content.

What this actually looks like is that reviews that fall into these categories should be able to be removed.

1. Insults from a Disgruntled Former Employee:
   • Reviews that contain personal attacks or defamatory remarks from a former employee, aimed at discrediting the business or its management.
2. Use of Offensive Language by a Customer:
   • Reviews that use slurs, derogatory terms, or other offensive language to describe their experience with the business.
3. A Competitor’s Fake Review Promoting Their Own Store:
   • Reviews written by competitors, attempting to undermine your business while subtly promoting their own services.
4. Reviews Mistakenly Posted on the Wrong Business Listing:
   • Reviews intended for another business but posted on your listing, resulting in irrelevant and potentially confusing feedback.
5. Fake Reviews Intended to Manipulate Business Ratings:
   • Reviews that are fabricated to artificially inflate or deflate your business’s ratings, often lacking specific details about actual customer experiences.

What Reviews Can’t Be Removed?

What this means is that Google generally won’t remove reviews that:

1. Provide Genuine Customer Feedback:
   • Honest experiences and opinions, even if they are negative, are typically not removed unless they violate the policies above.
2. Contain Constructive Criticism:
   • Reviews that offer critical but fair assessments of your products or services, intended to provide feedback.
3. Reflect Personal Opinions:
   • Reviews that reflect personal opinions or subjective experiences, as long as they do not breach Google’s content policies.
4. Mention Legitimate Complaints:
   • Reviews that highlight genuine issues or complaints that occurred during the customer’s experience.
5. Include Non-Offensive Language:
   • Reviews that are negative but do not use offensive language or personal attacks.

Steps for Jewellery Store Owners to Report and Remove Reviews

If you’ve decided that you have a good case to remove a review, you can flag inappropriate reviews for removal. Here’s how:

1. Respond to the Review Professionally Before you flag the review, acknowledge the customer’s concerns politely. Offer a solution or invite the customer to discuss the issue privately. This demonstrates your commitment to customer service and may encourage the reviewer to reconsider their review.

Not only could this result in the review getting removed, but it’s good practice to build a system to respond o all reviews, either positive or negative.

2. Flag the Review Sign in to your Google Business Profile. Locate the review you believe violates Google’s policies. Click on the three vertical dots next to the review and select “Flag as inappropriate.”
3. Fil Out the Review Removal Request Form You’ll ba asked to provide details of why you feel that the review should be removed, based on the options shown below. Once you have submitted the form, you’ll then have to wait for Google to review your request.

4. Monitoring the Review Status Regularly check your Google Business Profile for updates. Be prepared to provide additional information if Google requests it during their review process.

What to Do If You Can’t Get a Review Removed

Sometimes, despite your best efforts, a review cannot be removed. In such cases, consider the following actions:

1. Respond Publicly: Post a professional and polite response addressing the reviewer’s concerns. This shows potential customers that you take feedback seriously and are willing to resolve issues.
2. Improve Customer Experience: Use the feedback to identify areas of improvement in your service or products. Implement changes to prevent similar issues in the future.
3. Encourage Positive Reviews: Actively ask satisfied customers to leave positive reviews. This can help dilute the impact of negative reviews.
4. Seek Legal Advice: If a review is defamatory or violates legal standards, consider consulting with a legal professional to explore further action.

By following the steps outlined in this guide, you should have the tools you need to not-only protect your brand’s reputation but also demonstrate your commitment to customer satisfaction.

It’s also important to remember, every review is an opportunity to learn and improve. Embrace the feedback, address concerns and try to always deliver exceptional service. By doing so, you’ll build stronger relationships with your customers and reinforce the credibility of your business in your local market.