How to Beat Trustpilot and Ensure Your Business' Reviews Come out on Top

Trustpilot is annoying to say the least, if you get negative reviews, even if they are unfair, you have almost no hope of having them removed. Trustpilot do not care about evidence, they don't care if the customer is being unreasonable or if they were threatening or abusive towards your staff.

They will do as little as possible to help you as a business.

So, you have to help yourself.

Let's start with negative reviews. I once received a review that said "Arrived on time, works well but the experience left a lot to be desired." This was a one star review. We had the best price on the market and our check out process was stupidly easy. Short of a song and a dance, I wasn't sure what this guy wanted.

Sometimes customers are going to be impossible to please and when they are, that isn't your fault. But you do have to deal with their negative comments online, in some cases, like the one above, perspective new customers will probably see that this reviewer is being unreasonable.

My response: "Hi XXX, thank you for ordering with us. I was wondering, if your order was delivered next day and in immaculate, working condition, how we could make this experience better?"—See. It says stop being unreasonable ars***le but in a polite way.

As soon as a new negative review comes in, you need to be on damage control. Read the review and decide what your public response is going to be.

I always begin by apologising. If I haven't done anything wrong I put something like "I'm sorry you feel that way" or "I am sorry you feel that we have let you down in this instance." Then, I go on to address the issues in the complaint. If they are reasonable and you are guilty, then apologise sincerely.

If they are unreasonable then present your evidence.

If, for example, the customer is complaining about waiting two weeks for a delivery, but the tracking information shows that they missed delivery twice, put in the tracking code.

Then we look at reporting the review if needed.

On the right hand side of the review, if you are looking at the business Trustpilot page, is there an order number? If there is not an order reference number then use the "Find Reviewer" tool and request one.

If the customer does not respond within five days, you can report the review and Trustpilot are more likely to remove it. This is the best chance you have of it being removed.

If the review does not get removed, bury it with good reviews. One negative review looks much better surrounded by contradicting positive reviews.

How to Get Positive Reviews

Turn off the automatic review request feature if you have it activated. Do it now. Why? Because you have no control of who is getting the requests.

To beat Trustpilot's system, you have to stack the odds in your favour.

From now on, you only send out manual review requests. You do this for each customer after checking:

1. The item was delivered within the timeframe you stated.
2. You have given the customer at least three working days since delivery to report items broken or damaged in transit and anything with a fault.

You do not send review request to anyone that has returned their items, complained or requested a refund.

Do this at least once a week and you will find that your reviews will be mostly positive. All of the positive reviews will also say "Verified" which adds to the credibility.

I have done this process for three different companies and it never fails, I have had one go from a two star "Poor" rating to a four star "Great" rating over three weeks.

Good Luck!