If you are reading this, then you have probably received a negative review on Google places. Well the first dash of bad news is that the Google places reviews are seemingly unpopular (writing wise) in a lot of areas, but the ones that ARE written often have a very wide and large readership. Some of them are simply hard to miss. So if you have a negative review on there, then there are a lot of people who are seeing it.
The news gets no better either.
Google will not remove a review, unless you present them with a court order. Where it is true that you may be able to get a court order to remove a negative comment, opinion or complaint on a website that is dedicated only to consumer complaints, but Google is not. So a court order is going to be difficult and expensive.
You can flag the review as inappropriate if you can prove (or at least convince Google) that the review was placed by a competitor, that it is overly defamatory or libelous, extremely offensive or incomprehensible. There are probably a few more reasons to remove reviews, but Google are never in a rush to remove web content.
You can try an online reputation management company. They may have more luck than you, and if you only pay in return for a guaranteed removal, or only pay IF they are able to remove it, then do that. Don’t pay for them to TRY, because you are simply paying them to fail.
What you will need to do is lessen the blow of this negative review. You must go out of your way to get more good ones. Have the review section dwarf the negative review with positive ones, making sure that all the negative points are countered. You can also post replies from the company its self, preferably ones that will have your company come out of it in a positive light.
If it is possible, then you should also try to contact the negative review poster and try to convince them to remove the negative post. You can also try to remove your business from Google places, so that the review disappears, and then add it in again. Maybe even write the address or the name a little differently so that if the review is still on the server, that it is not linked with your company.
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