{"id":2011,"date":"2020-05-01T08:00:18","date_gmt":"2020-05-01T08:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prospectamarketing.com\/?p=2011"},"modified":"2020-05-01T08:00:18","modified_gmt":"2020-05-01T08:00:18","slug":"can-you-remove-bad-online-reviews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.prospectamarketing.com\/?p=2011","title":{"rendered":"Can You Remove Bad Online Reviews?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"shutterstock_1639352191\"<\/a>Online reviews have never been more important to small businesses. Almost everyone reads them, and almost everyone is influenced by them. Healthcare providers, including dental practices, are among the small businesses for which the most reviews are read.<\/p>\n

According to one survey, ninety-two percent of consumers read online reviews before deciding whether to part with their hard-earned money. Probably because they are written by ordinary people, these reviews do more to influence a business’s reputation than anything else. Most people trust them<\/strong><\/a> as much, if not more, as the recommendations of family and friends.<\/p>\n

In terms of global traffic, Google and Yelp are among the Internet’s top review platforms. More than half of all consumers, in fact, visit a business within forty-eight hours of Googling them.<\/p>\n

Bad Reviews<\/h4>\n

You can’t please everyone, and bad reviews are going to happen now and then. It’s important to always keep that in mind. Remember too that, as we have written elsewhere on this blog<\/strong><\/a>, there are actually benefits to an occasional negative review.<\/p>\n

One bad review isn’t much to worry about, but they are never to be taken lightly. Most negative reviews are driven by financial or billing issues. Sometimes customer reviews cross a line: they are grossly unfair or even untrue, and written by someone with an axe to grind. To make matters worse, there are companies trying to take advantage of that: they’ll offer to remove bad reviews for a fee \u2013 in order, they usually say, to protect\u00a0your online reputation.<\/p>\n

If you are approached by a company promising to remove any bad reviews, take a pass. Such offers are at best unreliable and at worst deceitful. Your online reputation does matter, and promoting and protecting it is a subject in and of itself. But\u00a0it is virtually impossible, in most cases, for a third party to remove \u2013 that is, to permanently delete \u2013 a regular bad online review from a legitimate patient.<\/p>\n

What You Can Do<\/h4>\n

The platforms that provide customer reviews want to present information you can trust: opinions that are honest and authentic. Google<\/a><\/strong> and Yelp<\/strong> <\/a>both have strict policies about review content, and will delete any\u00a0that deviate from them, such as:<\/p>\n