Since the ‘Fake News’ uproar of 2016, the reliability of information on the internet deteriorated drastically. Considering this, it is unsurprising to discover there is an abundance of unfair, inaccurate, or untrue reviews online. This is because online reviews tend to reside on sites that are widely unregulated. This can cause frustration for legal clients, as they try to turn to online resources to find a trustworthy law firm. They can’t be sure which reviews are genuine. They might think they’ve found the perfect law firm for their needs, until they stumble across a terrible review… but what if it can’t be trusted? With no context and no regulation of these reviews, which side should the uninformed client take?
Reviews that are distinctly ‘negative’ are often grouped together in an umbrella term, however there are many different forms of reviews that can affect a firm’s online reputation.
These include:
● Biased reviews. If an individual had a law firm instructed against them, and this firm won, they will have a negative perception of them – this is entirely unfair, as the law firm wasacting on behalf of their client, and shouldn’t be penalised for this.
● Defamatory reviews. A review left by a client that unfairly and purposefully damages the reputation of the law firm without reasonable cause or evidence. Individuals that may be upset that they did not achieve the result they wanted, and they may take this anger out on their firm. Emotionally driven responses may often affect the reliability of a review.
● Non-client reviews. A review left by someone who has not personally used the services of the law firm. An individual could pose as an unhappy client and leave a bad review to purposefully hurt the firm’s reputation. This means a review is entirely falsified.
● Irrelevant reviews. These are often a result of a misunderstanding or a mistake, such as reviews left for the wrong company, or reviews for a service the firm does not provide. These have no place to be affecting a client’s decision-making process to instruct a firm.
● Litigation issue reviews. Some reviews contain content that may affect data protection such as contact numbers and addresses. Alternatively, issues with a lack of context may also affect the intended message of the review.
To combat this, ReviewSolicitors has implemented a series of effective strategies for law firms that are signed up with premium accounts. A 48-hour suspension of negative reviews pendinginvestigation, and an email sent to the reviewer 15 minutes after posting. In most cases, this
results in the review being taken down. Furthermore, just by responding properly,
ReviewSolicitors has found that 70% of all negative reviews can be turned around into 5-star reviews, or the client will remove it. ReviewSolicitors has also found that 92% of all negative reviews can be resolved! Effective negative review handling can increase the likelihood of resolving the issue with the client, giving your law firm a near perfect score on ReviewSolicitors.
Our dedicated team of Account Managers are trained specifically to help your firm deal with your unfair reviews, which is an exclusive privilege for premium firms. Do bad reviews affect your online reputation?
Let us help to make your reviews responsible, respectful, and real!
Drop Adam Hall an email at ReviewSolicitors to find out more or learn more about what they do here.
adam.hall@reviewsolicitors.com
