Can I Stop the Bbb From Putting a Bad Review
When you're building a concern, you want to exercise everything you can to provide stellar products and/or services to your customers. When you operate at a high standard, you'll proceeds a reputation equally a business that people can trust and rely on—and that reputation volition continually drive new customers your way.
Online reviews play a huge role in edifice that reputation. When potential customers enquiry your business organization and read glowing, five-star reviews, they're going to want to reach out and do business with y'all. Simply if they read a bad review (even if information technology's biased, unfair or completely untrue), information technology'due south going to exercise the opposite—and send those customers straight to your competitors.
As a business owner, you want to do everything you lot can to effectively bargain with negative reviews so they don't ruin your business organization' reputation and proceed customers from working with you.
But what do you do when you get an unfair or untrue comment? How exercise you handle the situation? And can you (or should you) take it as far equally suing for defamation?
Contents
- Who Can You Sue Over a Bad Review?
- Can You Sue Review Sites Directly?
- What Can You Do?
- What Not to Do
- Deal With Bad Reviews Finer
Who Can You Sue Over a Bad Review?
To be honest, the answer is: It depends.
For the most part, reviews are covered under the Offset Amendment, which protects gratis speech. Additionally, 34 U.Due south. states have passed Anti-SLAPP (strategic lawsuits against public participation) laws. Anti-SLAPP is intended to foreclose people or businesses from silencing or censoring their critics by intimidating them with the threat of a lawsuit.
Thanks to these protections, if a client is unhappy with your products or services, or the experiences they've had with your business, they have the right to say so—whether that exist in person, over the phone, or online.
There are, however, exceptions. If a customer posts a review that is factually inaccurate or contains accusations about your business that are untrue, you may have grounds to sue the online reviewer for defamation.
The all-time way to distinguish between the two? Any review that contains a customer's opinions or factual information about your business would be covered under free spoken communication. Some examples of content that would be covered under the Beginning Amendment include:
- "That business charges an arm and a leg!"
- "I wasn't happy with the level of service I received."
- "The client service representative was rude."
On the other hand, whatever review that contains blatant factual inaccuracies that harm your business could be grounds for a defamation lawsuit. Some examples of content that might allow yous to sue (assuming the content is untrue) include:
- "This visitor does not accept a license to provide their services."
- "One of the workers stole an expensive sentinel while painting my home."
- "This visitor charged me for services that they never delivered—and have refused to return my money."
Earlier you fifty-fifty consider suing, make sure you distinguish whether the comment would even qualify as defamation—or if information technology would be protected under the Outset Amendment.
Can You Sue Review Sites Directly?
At that place are certain scenarios where you would exist able to sue a reviewer over a bad review (namely if it contained factual inaccuracies that harmed your business).
But what virtually the site where the review is hosted? Can yous go higher up the customer and sue the review site directly?
As it turns out, yous can't.
Under the U.S. Communications Decency Act, websites cannot be held liable for publishing whatever content written by a third party—and that includes review sites similar Yelp, Google Reviews, Healthgrades, and Angie's Listing.
So if the review site doesn't change or alter the content or meaning of the original comment? They're protected from any potential libel or defamation suits, which means you tin't sue them.
What Tin can Yous Do?
If you happen to come across a negative comment about your business organization, what should yous do? Is filing a defamation lawsuit a viable option?
The truth is, it takes a significant amount of time, money and energy to rent a lawyer and bring a suit to court in order to go a bad review removed from a review site. But, if the annotate is extremely harmful to your business organisation (and you can prove it to be false), information technology may be worth that time, coin and energy. If non, there are other, more practical ways to deal with a bad review.
Some strategies you lot can use to effectively deal with a negative review online include:
- Request the website to remove the online review. If someone has posted a comment that'due south both negative and factually inaccurate, you tin request that the website remove information technology past making your case that the data in the review is false. But keep in mind that they're under no obligation to remove the review.
- Post a thoughtful, gracious response. Arguably the best way to deal with a negative review? Posting a thoughtful, gracious response. Address any issues brought upward in the review, share how your visitor is working to ensure it doesn't happen again and offering a solution to the client. For example, if they had a negative customer service, yous might repent and offer them a discount lawmaking for a future purchase.
- Generate more positive online reviews. 1 of the best ways to gainsay negative reviews? With plenty of good reviews. Strive to offering the best products and/or services to your customers, make certain they're satisfied and then enquire them to post a review.
If you ultimately decide to move forward with a lawsuit, information technology'southward important to consult a lawyer immediately. And especially earlier yous invest too much fourth dimension, money or energy into the process. They can give you deeper insights on your legal options, the viability of your case and whether you might exist able to successfully sue for amercement.
What Non to Practice
There are also a few things you lot definitely DON'T want to do when you discover a negative review for your business concern, including:
- React immediately: Reading negative comments sting. And then when you read 1, your genu-jerk reaction may be to respond in the moment (e.g., past posting a annotate defending yourself). But if you answer immediately, you may react poorly (east.g., lashing out considering y'all feel angry or insulted). Instead, give yourself time to cool off before you lot write a measured response.
- Ignore the content: While information technology tin be hard to read negative or critical things virtually yourself or your business, if there'south truth to the negative review, it tin can be a growth opportunity. Don't immediately ignore the content of a review just considering it's negative. Instead, sit with information technology. See if there'southward any truth to what the review says and develop a program to address the upshot moving forward.
- Retaliate: If a annotate is either insulting or spreading lies about your business, you may want to retaliate against the reviewer. But it's incredibly important not to retaliate online because that retaliation can come up dorsum to haunt you—particularly if you plan to file a defamation suit.
Here'southward a existent-life example:
A contractor filed a $700,000 lawsuit confronting a homeowner who claimed on Yelp and Angie's List that he damaged her townhouse, billed her for work he never completed and stole her jewelry. Originally, the court awarded the contractor a victory and ordered the homeowner to have down the comment about theft.
But earlier going to trial, the contractor posted his own negative comments in response, claiming that since the homeowner never paid, she actually stole from him.
Ultimately, the jury adamant that while the homeowner defamed the contractor, the contractor'southward subsequently negative remarks also defamed her—so no amercement were awarded. Essentially, the contractor's online retaliation may have toll him a $700,000 settlement.
Deal With Bad Reviews Finer
No one likes to encounter bad reviews for their business—specially if they're malicious, harmful or untrue. Merely now that y'all know the most constructive ways to deal with them, you'll know how to navigate the situation next time you come beyond a negative annotate—whether that's past managing it on your ain or consulting a lawyer to move forward with a defamation suit.
This mail service was updated in Baronial, 2020.
Source: https://www.freshbooks.com/blog/can-you-sue-over-a-bad-review
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