Trustpilot: what has it done to Summerfield Browne?

Many of you will be aware that a firm of lawyers successfully sued one of their clients who posted a review on Trustpilot - for those of you who are interested the full sorry saga is here.

But today we are focussing on Trustpilot's response, nearly two weeks on (so far - they are currently yet to finalise whatever action they may or may not take).

The story so far...

The customer/client posted this review:

The business - in this case a firm of solicitors - took the reviewer to court and won (£25,000) for 'loss of earnings directly attributable to the review in question.' Trustpilot was ordered to remove the review.

So what other action has Trustpilot taken?

They posted this on the business's listing:

We appreciate that this may be hard to read on some platforms, so here are the key points:

• 'Please be aware that this business has taken legal action against a consumer for a review...'
• 'We strongly oppose the use of legal action to silence consumer’s freedom of speech. As a public, open, review platform we believe strongly in consumers having the ability to leave feedback - good or bad - about a business at any time, without interference.'
• 'This is the first time we’ve seen a business taking such extreme measures against a consumer voicing their genuine opinion. The vast majority of businesses on Trustpilot engage with their consumers or use our flagging tools to report content and resolve their issues.'
• 'Unfortunately, we are required to remove the review which was the subject of the legal action. We are exploring our options to challenge this decision.'
• 'The business’ actions have resulted in media attention and this profile has seen a significant increase in reviews that don’t reflect an experience with the business.'
  

Trustpilot is no longer accepting reviews on the business, pending 'further investigation'

But the following reviews remain on the business's listing:

The above is almost certainly - to our eyes anyway - written by the person who wrote the original contentious review.

And this:

This is obviously written by someone who has no experience of the business whatsoever, aside from reading about the legal action on the BBC website. 

Here is the business's Trustpilot score returned in search as of today:

We would like to make the following points:

1. The court made its ruling and award on the basis that the single negative review had caused a fall-off in inquiries of nearly forty percent
2. This shows the power of a single negative review
3. So why would Trustpilot allow the second review by the reviewer in question to remain of the business's listing?
4. And why would they allow the 'review' by 'Chris' to remain?
5. If the forty percent drop in business as a direct result of the one negative review is true, and the court certainly believe it to be so, what impact will a 'frozen' listing containing the two reviews shown above - as well as the dreadful score in Google search - continue to have?

HelpHound's opinion

1. Review sites where there is no right of appeal - or the right of appeal is somehow dependent upon paid membership - should be outlawed by the Competition and Markets Authority
2. Selling the services of a review site predicated upon negative reviews from unverified customers should likewise be outlawed
3. Reviews that are patently written by those with no first-hand experience of the business should be outlawed
4. It should be made compulsory to explain to potential clients of reviews sites that there is a free alternative to the core services: review and display of reviews, provided by Google
5. Reviews sites should not be allowed to promote  the suspension of negative reviews  'pending proof of purchase' as a benefit of paid membership

In summary

We believe that Google reviews - either of the business or its products and services - combined with the facility to show verified reviews on your own website are the only currently viable proposition for businesses. This is explained in detail here.

We also believe, firmly, that moderation services such as our own are essential to ensure the very minimum of factually inaccurate or potentially misleading reviews sees the light of day.

Fair for the consumer and, just as importantly, fair for the business.

And finally...

Our advice to Summerfield Browne: you have £25,000. Use that to put all the pressure you can on Trustpilot to reopen your listing and then get the two offending reviews deleted, by resorting to law, if need be.

But don't, whatever you do, pay Trustpilot. Instead: focus on your Google reviews. They are seen by every single person searching for your business, even just to find your phone number, and you currently look like this in every single search:

With this a click away:

And our advice for the legal profession as a whole?

Many law firms remain extremely vulnerable to a single well-written, but possibly malicious, negative review. In the case of Summerfield Browne they were probably lucky that the reviewer chose Trustpilot: if they had chosen Google the damage would have been greater by a significant margin - especially on top of the pre-existing negative review above.

It is important to keep an eye on all review platforms, but especially on Google, where we advise all our clients to achieve a minimum of 50 reviews as quickly as they possibly can and then aim next for 100, at which point a business can relax, but not to the point of ignoring reviews altogether; they are far too important an ingredient in every single business's SEO, apart from impressing prospective clients - in both directions, as is evidenced by the fall-off of enquiries to Summerfield Browne in London.

We advise all our clients to ensure their review management policies comply with UK law, and this is obviously extremely important for legal businesses. Far too many solicitors are currently in breach - we estimate at least four in ten - mostly by chery-picking 'happy' clients to ask to write reviews whilst ignoring others. Such action is against the CMA's core regulations and thus against UK law. There's more on compliance here.

And a final word of caution...

Do not, whatever you do - and however tempting the pitch may be - fall for any business with the words 'reputation management' in its 'About us' tab. We have a file full of horror stories of upselling, freemium schemes and long-term lock-in contracts. Businesses with pre-existing negative reviews are manna from heaven for so-called 'reputation managers'.

At HelpHound we don't expect any of our clients to sign any kind of term contract; if we have worked for a business for two years - or even ten years - it's because we produce the goods. They are all free to leave at any time.

A review is damaging your business - should you sue the reviewer?

 

A link for Times subscribers, substantially the same article in the Mail (free to view)

Many readers will have seen the story about the solicitor who successfully sued their client and won £25,000 in damages, plus an order for Trustpilot to take the offending review down. Is this a strategy that we would advise? 

First:  here is the offending Trustpilot review:

Second: on what basis did the judge make the award in favor of the claimant (the firm of solicitors)? We will let the judge speak for himself:

"Mr Bradshaw [the counsel for the claimant] submits that the allegation of dishonesty made that the Defendant is that it is "a scam solicitor", has the plain meaning that the Claimant is dishonest and fraudulent. The Defendant seeks to present this as an opinion. Mr Bradshaw argues this is impermissible, the Defendant is putting forward the Claimant's dishonesty as a matter of fact and cannot simply say by way of defence "this is my opinion". In the circumstances, I accept the law is as stated in Wasserman v Freilich and am satisfied Mr Bradshaw's submission is correct, with the result the defence of honest opinion should be struck out.

His full adjudication is to be found here.

While this may have severe long term implications for Trustpilot, we are mainly concerned with the implications for the business - in the short and long term - in this article.

The short term impact - pre-court

The claimant states and the judge has accepted, that the main financial harm done by this single review was a reduction of enquiries (and, by implication, the fees that would otherwise have flowed from those enquiries), fell - again, as a direct result of that one review - by nearly 40 percent. The resulting damages awarded by the court are direct compensation for that loss.

The short term impact - post-court

To fully appreciate this we need to look at two before-and-after scenarios: on Trustpilot and, far more importantly, on Google.

Before: 7 February 2021 on Trustpilot:

Before: 7 February 2021 on Google

Today, twenty-four hours later, on Trustpilot

And Google

What has happened?

You may remember the high-profile case of the Red Hen, a Democrat supporting restaurant in Lexington, Virginia that was reported to have ejected Sarah Sanders, the then President Trump's press secretary. What happened next was what the web calls a 'pile-on', where supporters of either, in this instance, political side write reviews, irrespective of the fact that none of the reviewers themselves has any direct experience of eating at said restaurant. It even impacted the wider town economy.

The people involved in the pile-on write two kinds of review: the first kind makes no attempt to look like a genuine review of the business and simply either supports or criticises the political (in our case strategic) stance taken by the restaurant; the second - and, some might say, cleverer - review purports to have visited the establishment (in our case, been a client of) and rates it as 'excellent' or 'poor' depending on their political affiliation (in our case, personal point of view).

What you see in the screenshots above is one of the most extreme examples of a pile-on we have ever seen in the UK (there was a questionably funny one of a flop-house in Glasgow that was boosted into the top 100 hotels in the UK there a few years ago).

The reviews are almost all along these lines (Trustpilot):

Google:

If that weren't enough, look at the up-votes from those who support the 'reviewer's' position.

And, lo-and-behold, another review from the defendant (or, at least, someone purporting to be him):

Now the medium to long-term impact

On Summerfield Browne

If we accept that the one single review impacted enquiries and resulting fee income by nearly forty percent, what now? 

We can only apply common sense combined with our considerable experience - over ten years of helping businesses with what they have considered inaccurate, misleading or just plain unfair reviews. Just one Google review, based on the reviewer having watched a TV programme featuring the hotel in question, resulted in the business's phone going completely quiet. No bookings whatsoever.

Here's the offending review on Google - which we were able to get taken down, to the intense relief of the management:

The point here is much more a PR question than a legal one. We cannot be positively sure what our exact advice to Summerfield Browne would have been without access to all the facts of the case, but based on the review itself this would have been as follows:

1. Respond to the review on Trustpilot - no need to join or pay Trustpilot, simply respond on the site with a reasoned and reasonable answer to all the points the review raised, remembering not to breach confidentiality and that the reviewer always has the right to post a subsequent review. 

2.  Adopt a proactive review management strategy to get a consistent flow of reviews to both Google and Trustpilot, with the objective of ensuring that the overwhelming majority of reviews reflect the reality of the business.*

*Bearing in mind that the CMA regulations stipulate that any business inviting reviews must enable all of their customers to do so. See here for more details on this important subject.

But we have no doubt whatsoever that the impact of both the multitude of press coverage plus the company's image in search and on the review sites, both Trustpilot and much more importantly Google - where they had a reasonably clean sheet up until last week - will be detrimental. 

On Trustpilot

Section 40 of the judge's finding reads:

"In the circumstances I will make a s.13 order requiring Trustpilot to remove the defamatory review, on the basis that the Defendant's conduct to date makes it doubtful that he will comply with the injunctive relief the Claimant has been granted. 

Well, Trustpilot directors are probably sitting around a boardroom table in Copenhagen right at this minute having an interesting legal conversation to decide whether they should comply with the judge's instructions to them (as of going to press they have yet to delete the offending review, but they have suspended new reviews to Summerfield Browne's listing).

It will also be interesting to see if Trustpilot applies to the Court:

"As Trustpilot has not been present or represented at this hearing the order will contain a provision that it may apply to the Court for the order to be varied or discharged."

Why so interesting? Because on the basis of the Judge's ruling it is arguable that a huge volume of reviews hosted on Trustpilot could be actionable - a simple Google search on 'Trustpilot scam' returns 5.6 million results. Another similar search on a high-profile Trustpilot client, Purplebricks returns nearly 3,000 results alone. 'Scam' would appear to be a very popular word amongst online reviewers with a negative opinion of the business they are reviewing

People will soon stop using Trustpilot and similar sites if they think a loosely worded review may cost them £25,000!

Update 10 February 2021: Trustpilot today added this to Summerfield Browne's listing, and closed it for new reviews:

In summary

There are salutary lessons here for all businesses:

• ensure you have a proactive review strategy in place: playing catch-up when things go wrong simply doesn't work. This business will take a long time to recover, even if they do adopt the right strategy going forwards

• have professional advice a phone call away; if a lawyer can get things so wrong, what chance an ordinary business?

• always respond to all reviews. And always take professional advice before responding to complex negative reviews

• There are tens of thousands of businesses like Summerfield Browne, who thought they could safely ignore reviews until something like this happens. Get a considerable presence on the review platforms that matter: Google first and foremost. What is a 'considerable presence'? 100 reviews, minimum. 

• Don't pay a reviews site. Google is free, and it is by far the most powerful in terms of reach and influence

And the $64,000 dollar one here:

• Never resort to litigation unless you are absolutely sure that the negatives aren't outweighed by the advantages.