I recently received a frantic phone call from a long-time friend. He was in a full-blown panic because his company had received a bad Google review. Now, I’ve been through this before. Bad reviews happen. It’s a part of running a business. But my friend, while a brilliant professional in his field, is not exactly tech-savvy. So, I tried to calm him down and offer some advice.
I explained that bad reviews happen, and there are ways to address them. I suggested responding to the review with empathy and a commitment to improving the situation. But then, he dropped a bombshell: “No, you don’t get it. It’s on my website!”
I couldn’t help but laugh. My friend is great at what he does, but websites and technology are not his strong suit. I reassured him that we could fix it.
“You can just remove it,” I said.
“I can??!!” he exclaimed.
Technically, he couldn’t, but his web developer could. Or, if his developer couldn’t figure it out, I offered to help.
After a few more panicky moments, my friend calmed down. I removed the bad review from his website.
Then, I explained to him that his web developer had set up his website to automatically feed Google reviews onto the site. This meant that bad reviews could appear without anyone noticing.
I suggested that we look into how this process worked and then switch to an approval-based system. This way, bad reviews wouldn’t just appear on his website without someone reviewing them first.
“Can you just fix it?” he asked.
While we were talking on the phone, I pulled up his website and made the necessary changes, but it also presented prime opportunity to tease him a bit. So I told him it would take months, and then there was a long silence on the phone.
“You’re messing with me aren’t you?! You did it already didn’t you?” And a few other choice words and fun name calling that I will leave out, followed by a lot of laughing and a thank you.
In the end, it was a simple fix. But it’s a good reminder to the importance of monitoring your online presence and understanding how your website works.
