A business listing is automatically generated when a consumer visits our site and submits a review for your company. Once a business listing has been generated any subsequent reviews will be posted on the same review page.
Consumers have the right to review their experiences at whatever websites they visit and we do not remove business listings. Instead of trying to remove your listing, we recommend taking advantage of this opportunity to engage with your fans and critics alike, and hear what they have to say.
b2binspection adheres to Google’s content guidelines. Businesses that are not allowed include sites containing adult, violent, or illegal content; sites selling recreational drugs, weapons, or tobacco-related products; and sites enabling dishonest behavior. To see the full list, read Google’s prohibited content guidelines.
The overall rating of any business is a weighted average, with 50% of the weighting coming from the average rating of all reviews, 25% of the weighting coming from an average of all reviews written in the last 12 months, and 25% of the weighting coming from an average of all reviews written in the last month. Should the 12-month or 1-month weighting periods be without reviews, that period is assigned an “average” rating (e.g., 3 stars) in the weighting.
This rating system was put into place to reflect the principle that more recent reviews are more valuable to consumers than older ones. The system was also created in response to consumer demand that ratings ought to reflect the most recent practices of a business, and business demand that improvements to service should be more accurately reflected in ratings. This system has been successfully rolled out to the over 100,000 businesses reviewed on b2binspection.
The quickest way to improve your overall rating is to collect as many reviews as possible from your current customers. With 25% of your overall score depending on reviews posted in the last 30 days, it is essential to have reviews coming in regularly. b2binspection offers a variety of free tools to make review collection simple and effective, including our Automated Review Requests.
“Reputation management” companies often charge a fee and claim to remove negative reviews or boost ratings to manipulate your online reputation – these companies have no influence over what appears on b2binspection. If you’ve been contacted by someone offering similar “reputation management services” please email us at [email protected] and let us know so we can prevent them from preying on other website owners.
b2binspection includes a “Best of” section making it easy for consumers to find the very best businesses at the top of their field. Businesses are ranked based on an internal score that is comprised of a website’s Alexa ranking (50%), the total number of reviews (25%) and the overall average rating (25%).
Absolutely! In fact, b2binspection offers tools created specifically for requesting reviews from your customers. Please note that we do not allow targeting of customers that you feel would be more likely to submit a positive review. Solicitation of reviews must be done from an unbiased sampling of your customers. If b2binspection finds that reviews are only being requested from certain customers in an attempt to skew review ratings you could lose access to your business account.
No. Businesses may not offer coupons, discounts, free samples or any kind of incentive in exchange for a review. Offering incentives for reviews can lead to reviews being written that do not reflect an honest, unbiased account of the customer experience. If the b2binspection Terms of Service are being violated and incentives are being offered in exchange for reviews you could lose access to your business account.
In our experience it definitely works to your advantage to respond to both positive and negative reviews. Responding to reviews is an excellent way to build goodwill and learn from some of your most engaged customers. b2binspection offers free tools for responding both publicly and privately to all your reviews on your reviews page.
To successfully engage your customers and compose an effective message, keep in mind that:
Responding to positive reviews isn’t as easy as it might at first seem.
In responding to a positive reviewer your primary goal should be to give them a brief, friendly, personal thank you that lets them know that you care about them as a customer. Mistakes we often see include long cut-and-paste form messages, offers of free stuff that can feel like bribes, complaints about minor criticisms, mailing list requests, and requests to "spread the word". All these tactics can turn off your positive reviewers – think about how you would feel as a reviewer – you’d just like a simple thank you too. Don’t forget this customer already likes you, so just say hello and a quick thanks.
To respond to a review, visit your reviews page here.
Admittedly, this is much harder than responding to a positive review but if you can respond directly to the customer’s experience and any changes you may have made as a result, this could go far in earning trust and a second chance.
It’s painful to get a negative review, especially if you run a small business. It can even feel like a personal attack. On the positive side, by engaging your reviewer and establishing a real human connection, you can often help the situation and perhaps even change the customer’s mind. We’ve seen time and again positive outcomes from positive, proactive businesses owners engaging grumpy customers. You’d be surprised how often a polite response to a bad review can result in the reviewer giving your business a second chance.
A note of caution: if a reviewer perceives your response to be condescending, rude or insincere, it’s possible they will get angry and further spread their review all over the internet.
To respond to a review, visit your reviews page here.
Definitely! Public comments are a way for website owners to add a helpful comment to a customer’s review. Perhaps more importantly, responding publicly also shows other potential customers that you value their feedback and that you’re always striving to improve.
Be sure to keep your comments simple and polite. Reviewers appreciate honesty and like to know when changes are made based on their feedback.
Also, it’s worth noting that it doesn’t always make sense to comment. If you’re upset, you might write something that will reflect poorly on your website. Wait until you’ve had some time to think about a review; there may be legitimate concerns brought up in the review that you can address in a constructive way.
Please don’t use public comments to make personal attacks, advertise, or offer incentives to change a review. Disclosing any private information about the reviewer is also prohibited (e.g., full name, address, phone number, email address, etc.)
To write a public comment on behalf of your website, visit your reviews page here.
You can, although we’ve found it’s often most effective to attempt to resolve issues through private messaging first. If you feel a public comment is necessary, present your case as simply and politely as possible, and do not attack the reviewer under any circumstances. Remember that other potential customers will be reading your comment and you want to leave them with a positive impression of your business.
Business cannot pay to have reviews removed. b2binspection has a very strict policy of only removing reviews if they violate b2binspection’s Review Guidelines or are deemed by our moderation team to be fraudulent. These policies are applied equally to all reviews of all businesses across our platform.
No. Offering to resolve an issue only if a review is removed is prohibited. If a reviewer’s complaint has been taken care of you can ask them if they would consider updating their review to reflect the assistance they received. However, the resolution cannot be dependent on, or in exchange for, the editing or removal of a review. Any violation of this policy can result in your b2binspection business account being revoked.
Please note that b2binspection does not arbitrate disputes and if you feel that a review is inaccurate you can post a public response and send a private message to the reviewer to clear up any misunderstandings. Reviews will not be removed due to a perceived discrepancy of information provided.
You can’t please all of your customers all of the time, no matter how good of a job you do. Negative reviews are an unfortunate but completely normal part of doing business.
While it’s important to look for patterns in your reviews (e.g., your site is hard to navigate or that a particular customer service rep is rude), you shouldn’t read too much into any one review. Most b2binspection visitors are looking for a consensus among all of the reviews they read rather than to focus on any one review, so you should do the same.
Nobody likes to get a negative review, and it’s even worse if you think it violates your legal rights. But a good lawyer will tell you the truth: defamation suits are notoriously expensive and difficult to win. Worse still, they are very public. We can point to countless examples of ill-advised lawsuits that hurt the business far more than it ever helped. Nor will you get far by bringing b2binspection into the dispute since b2binspection acts as a forum like any other where people can share their views. The law is well-settled on this point, but you are welcome to ask any internet attorney to confirm. There may be rare cases when it’s appropriate to take legal action, but in most cases, you won’t get what you are looking for by suing someone who gives you a bad review. It’s also important to note that you may also run a risk of the Anti-SLAPP statute requiring you to pay attorneys’ fees to the other side.
b2binspection takes fake reviews very seriously and does four important things to prevent them:
b2binspection takes review fraud seriously. Writing or paying for fake reviews is unethical, against b2binspection’s terms