What is Glassdoor?
It’s the world’s largest career community where employees and job seekers come together to share an inside look at their companies. This community has already shared millions of anonymous salaries and reviews across hundreds of thousands of companies.
Glassdoor has made it easy to learn more about companies and their work culture. It provides an insider’s view into salaries, benefits and drawbacks even before walking in for an interview.
Why is Glassdoor Important? So What’s the Catch?
Glassdoor reviews are not always reliable since the users are not required to verify their employment with companies they are writing about before posting a review. These unverified and anonymous reviews are like a double-edged sword. On the positive side, a company’s online presence is boosted and information is made readily available to the public but the downside is that these reviews are only helpful to users and the companies if they actually reflect genuine experiences and factual information.
Since Glassdoor does not require verification and anonymity is provided, companies can manipulate their own ratings or sabotage a competitor’s ratings. A disgruntled employee or former client can damage a company’s well-kept reputation with just a few words. These reviews and ratings will dominate your brand or company’s search results and gnaw away at your carefully built reputation.
How to Remove Negative Glassdoor Reviews? What Can Be Done
A brand or company that has an online presence will inevitably receive unfavourable or false feedback. Maintaining a good business reputation now requires knowing how to deal with these negative and fake reviews professionally and quickly.
Please keep in mind that Glassdoor reviews can be removed but only if they violate the Community Guidelines or are inherently illegal in nature. Requesting removal of a review just because it is negative and paints a company in a bad light will not get you anywhere.
For purposes of this discussion, a “bad review” refers to those that violate Community guidelines and not just a “negative” review. A fake review on the other hand, is a review made by non-employee or non-client, possibly done to maliciously affect ratings.
If your company has received a bad or fake review, this article will guide you through how to have it flagged for review or have it removed altogether.
Communicate With The Author To Delete Glassdoor Review
If the author of the review is an actual employee or client and it was not made anonymously, the best approach is to communicate with them directly. This means getting in touch with them via e-mail correspondence or a phone call. Hashing it out in the “reply” section of the review is not recommended.
Listen carefully to their complaints and criticisms and reassure them that their feedback is valued and being considered. Offer solutions to issues that can still be fixed and apologise for those that can no longer be resolved. Treat this situation as extended customer service.
- Flag Glassdoor Reviews That Violate User Guidelines
To report content:
- Click the Flag icon located below the content.
- Choose one reason you are reporting the review from the drop-down menu. Reasons include:
- This review violates Glassdoor’s guidelines.
- This review contains false information.
- The same person has written multiple reviews.
- This review was written by management or HR.
- This review is for the wrong company.
- I want to comment on this review.
- None of the choices above apply.
- Click Next.
- If a text box is provided (limited to 1,500 characters or less), explain why you are reporting the review.
- Note: Only Glassdoor’s Community Care Team will see what you type in this box. It won’t be posted on the site, and neither the employee who posted the reviews nor the employer it pertains to will see it.
- Click Submit or Close.
- Click Got it!
To report content from within the Employer Center:
- Go to the Employer Center.
- Click on the Reviews tile.
- On the review you wish to report, click the Flag icon below the content.
- If a text box is provided (limited to 1,500 characters or less), explain why you are reporting the review.
- Click Send.
False reviews should be flagged if you have reason to believe that they violate the Community Guidelines and Terms of Glassdoor. The following are examples, but are not limited to these:
- Contains profanity
- Reveals confidential, non-public internal company information
- Includes an advertisement or web link
- Contains substantial quoted material from other sources
- Fake accounts
- Defamatory, libelous or fraudulent content
- Promotes illegal activities
- Contains threats, harassment, abusive, racist content
- Violates a third party’s intellectual property rights
- Violates the rule: “one review, per employer, per year, per review type”
Take Legal Action To Remove Glassdoor Negative Reviews
If communicating with the author or flagging the review did not work out for you, you may decide to resort to take legal action. However, before you file a lawsuit, please consider the following:
The law protects Glassdoor from responsibility for the content submitted by its users. If you sue Glassdoor users or ask Glassdoor to reveal their identities, they protect their anonymity in court. It is also difficult to file a lawsuit if the author is anonymous because of issues regarding jurisdiction. Your location and the author’s location are also factors to be considered.
Tried to remove negative
reviews, No success, Now What?
If the recourses above did not help you at all or you are unsatisfied with the results, you may be asking yourself what else can be done?
Ask your Employees to Leave A Glassdoor Reviews
Glassdoor actually encourages companies and employers to ask their employees to leave more reviews. By doing so, it drowns out the negative and fake reviews. However, you should not ask, incentivize or coerce your employees into writing only positive reviews. If you manage your company properly and you have built a good relationship with your employees, then you can expect that they would help you boost your online reputation by leaving honest and predominantly happy feedback.
While getting more positive feedback to drown out the negative ones is the best solution, please do not attempt to generate fake positive reviews or even pay for anonymous reviews. Doing so would obviously violate numerous laws applicable to your business and Glassdoor’s policies.
Prevention is Key
The best practice is to build and maintain a positive business and work culture. Having an excellent relationship with your employees and clients will ultimately protect and boost your business. Stay on top of your online presence and be proactive with feedback.
Seek Help or Assistance – Remove Digital
If all of these prove to be too overwhelming, too much work or if you would just like to entrust your online reputation to more capable hands, we at Remove Digital can help you. Contact us at [email protected] to learn more.