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Bad reviews

mac

Well-known member
Well I feel as though I’ve turned this older around. Get many positive comments from my customers. I’ve had two people leave a reiew on google saying the place was a mess, overpriced, and poor quality. I know for a fact that these are bogus. And since I’ve owned it less than a year and the previous owners were clueless about the business there are a lot of older bad reviews. So my questionis do any of you know how to reset the reviews and remove the false ones? I do respond to them all but if you just glance at our rating it’s low.
 
I had a lady leave a 2 star review this week before contacting us about the $10 hold on her CC. After we explained it would drop off she still left the 2 star review. If people knew how much hard work went into making a car wash the best it can be, they wouldn't leave bad reviews. My wife and I strive for the best for our washes.
 
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I was lucky when I bought the rehab SS that I currently own. The previous owner required me to change the name (which I gladly did) and that allowed me to start over with Google and punt all of his terrible reviews.

That said, it still took weeks for Google to take down his old listing and make my new one official for that address. They are a royal pain in the a$$ to work with, due mainly because most of their "customer care" phone bank operators moonlight as goat herders in Uzbekistan.
 
I have signs in all the bays asking for 5 star reviews if they like our wash. The sign also says that if they're not satisfied or something is wrong to please email or text me and I include my contact info. Like KleanRide ,I changed the name when I took over a year ago. The rating was one star. Fast forward a year and we're 4.6 stars. Only one dude left a very negative review which was clearly bogus.
 
I’ve reported a one star review (from an employee of another wash nearby!) to google numerous times with zero luck. Your best is good enough and all you can do
 
Yelp keeps contacting us to try to get us to advertise with them and confirm our business listings with them. I then told them to hold on while I checked into something (reviews of yelp itself)... Then I told them that I refuse to do business with anyone with reviews of only 1.5 stars! That made me happy.
 
I once got a bad review on a wash.I sold 3 years earlier that had been torn down a replaced with a retail store. Took Google 6 months to get rid of the review.
 
How many people would actually look at a review when they are driving down the road looking for a car wash? I am betting it rarely happens.
 
How many people would actually look at a review when they are driving down the road looking for a car wash? I am betting it rarely happens.
True. But A friend (geek) who helped me set up my website says that Google reviews matter mostly for search relevancy, and that sites with the higher review averages pop up closer to the top, and more often, when someone searches "car wash" in your area. Not sure if that's accurate but it seems logical.
 
Had one review claim female cashier was rude, Told yelp it must have been for some other business since we don't any female employees. They refused to remove it. Magic words when they call me to advertise "Remove me from your call list".
 
All those reviews from Google and Yelp are mainly people that are drunk at 2:00 in the morning and have nothing else to do. Think of how many times a customer comes up to you at your wash and compliments you. To me that means more then most of these idiots leaving 1 to 3 star reviews that are mostly bs.
 
Only thing I can recommend to minimize this is have a phone number readily available on the site. Sometimes they call, sometimes they don't. I've got a google voice number now which is free and allows options such as call forwarding and a transcript of voicemail sent to email..
 
One thing I do is to go on my Google Biz Page and respond to the reviews. Some of the jerkier ones I ignore, like you do with a bad dog. Sometimes there is no sense in arguing.
 
I had a customer or competitor post on Google that all my vacs didn’t work, my credit card acceptor would not stop, no high pressure soap, dirty foam from the foam brush and all the bays were muddy.
Funny thing is he left his full name.
I had been at the wash 3 hrs. earlier and everything was clean and working.
Went back up and had 1 bay that had a landscaper use it. Had some of the typical landscaper debris in it.
A car was using the bay and the customer said it was no big deal.
All the C.C and vacs were working.
I Googled his name, got his phone number and called him to discuss his problems.
Caught off guard he stammered an apology. He didn’t press the CC stop button, pull the hp trigger or use any vacs.
He never revised his review.
7 months later he posted THE SAME REVIEW ON YELP
I checked all the CC on that day and a month before and he never used his CC.
There are some SICK people out there.
 
Mac & others,

Persons who lie & mislead cleverly vs the ones that lie & mislead dumbo way??? The deceptive clever ones are the ones you have to watch out for the most IMHO. For example ... I had a 1 star review from someone who wrote ... quote "the place should be burnt down". Our building is for the most part all concrete block. I got busy with other things & the bad review was left for a few months until I caught it ... not sure on the damage done. Google did remove it within a day or so once I notified them ... probably because it met their guideline of "hate speech" or whatever.

I have an LBGTQ activist "from who knows where" that we are coming very close to getting a "no trespass" for very legitimate compelling even beyond just loitering reasons. Mind you ... he is very skilled at talking back ... including telling me to go ahead call the police. He may have met his match though ... I told him about in the past when someone said that to me ... they wound up screaming at me madder than hell for calling the police when I did. I always like it when they do it in front of the PD ... especially death threats towards me. This drag queen - hooker "who knows" 6' 2" guy I think is more Bruce Jenner saying in an almost inaudible voice to someone like Ben Shapiro about "taking care of Ben" in the parking lot after the publicly broadcasted panel of discussion!!!

I above person may do a number on the business via social media ... not sure if google & other social media will respond at that point ... depending how deceptive the perp is.

I have been getting calls from yelp ... their selling point lately has been is that my mostly positive reviews that already exist makes it so I am missing a great opportunity by not buying ads from them. Not sure if it is just a sales "spin" by them or not???
 
Whenever I get a lower review on Google I then search out the reviewer and see all their other reviews of businesses. Almost always their other reviews are low as well. Had one lady give me a one star review (no explanation or comment). I looked her up and she had given over 100 one-star reviews on Google. That was the only rating she gave anyone. Look up your poor reviews and see what those same people are reviewing everyone else.
 
I myself do not worry about bad ratings. I believe most people only seek out reviews just to see how their experience matches up to others to reinforce their opinion.

That's not to say I don't have some fun. We had a guy who had a muddy jeep that we had to run. He went off on us on a Facebook review, saying it was just a little mud. For fun, I just so happen to have had a photo of a mulch mess unrelated to that. I posted a picture, saying that was the mess that he left. He Facebook messaged me all upset, saying that customers started hassling him. I didn't respond to the message and laughed.
 
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