Is It Illegal for a Company to Make You Sign a Performance Review

When yous're building a business, you lot want to practice everything you lot can to provide stellar products and/or services to your customers. When you operate at a high standard, you lot'll gain a reputation as a business that people can trust and rely on—and that reputation will continually drive new customers your fashion.

Online reviews play a huge role in building that reputation. When potential customers research your business organisation and read glowing, five-star reviews, they're going to want to reach out and do business with y'all. But if they read a bad review (even if it'southward biased, unfair or completely untrue), it's going to exercise the contrary—and send those customers directly to your competitors.

As a business organization possessor, you want to practice everything you tin can to effectively bargain with negative reviews so they don't ruin your business' reputation and keep customers from working with you.

But what exercise you lot practice when you get an unfair or untrue comment? How do you handle the state of affairs? And tin yous (or should you) accept it as far equally suing for defamation?

Contents

• Who Can You Sue Over a Bad Review?
• Can You Sue Review Sites Directly?
• What Tin You Do?
• What Not to Do
• Deal With Bad Reviews Finer

Who Can You Sue Over a Bad Review?

To exist honest, the answer is: It depends.

For the virtually part, reviews are covered under the First Amendment, which protects free spoken language. Additionally, 34 U.S. states take passed Anti-SLAPP (strategic lawsuits against public participation) laws. Anti-SLAPP is intended to forestall people or businesses from silencing or censoring their critics by intimidating them with the threat of a lawsuit.

Thanks to these protections, if a customer is unhappy with your products or services, or the experiences they've had with your business concern, they have the right to say and then—whether that exist in person, over the phone, or online.

In that location are, still, exceptions. If a customer posts a review that is factually inaccurate or contains accusations almost your concern that are untrue, you lot may have grounds to sue the online reviewer for defamation.

The best fashion to distinguish between the two? Any review that contains a customer's opinions or factual information about your business would exist covered under costless speech. Some examples of content that would be covered under the First Amendment include:

• "That business charges an arm and a leg!"
• "I wasn't happy with the level of service I received."
• "The customer service representative was rude."

On the other manus, any review that contains blatant factual inaccuracies that harm your business could be grounds for a defamation lawsuit. Some examples of content that might allow you lot to sue (assuming the content is untrue) include:

• "This company does not have a license to provide their services."
• "One of the workers stole an expensive watch while painting my home."
• "This company charged me for services that they never delivered—and have refused to return my money."

Before you even consider suing, make sure you distinguish whether the comment would even qualify as defamation—or if it would be protected under the First Amendment.

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Can Y'all Sue Review Sites Directly?

There are sure scenarios where you would be able to sue a reviewer over a bad review (namely if it independent factual inaccuracies that harmed your business organization).

Only what about the site where the review is hosted? Can you get higher up the client and sue the review site directly?

As information technology turns out, you lot tin't.

Nether the U.S. Communications Decency Act, websites cannot exist held liable for publishing whatsoever content written by a third party—and that includes review sites like Yelp, Google Reviews, Healthgrades, and Angie's List.

So if the review site doesn't change or alter the content or meaning of the original comment? They're protected from any potential libel or defamation suits, which means y'all can't sue them.

What Tin can You Practice?

If you happen to come across a negative annotate about your business, what should you do? Is filing a defamation lawsuit a viable option?

The truth is, it takes a significant corporeality of time, money and free energy to rent a lawyer and bring a accommodate to court in order to get a bad review removed from a review site. Merely, if the annotate is extremely harmful to your business (and you tin can bear witness it to be fake), it may be worth that fourth dimension, money and energy. If not, there are other, more than practical means to deal with a bad review.

Some strategies you lot tin can use to effectively deal with a negative review online include:

• Request the website to remove the online review. If someone has posted a comment that's both negative and factually inaccurate, y'all tin can request that the website remove information technology by making your case that the information in the review is false. But keep in heed that they're nether no obligation to remove the review.
• Post a thoughtful, gracious response. Arguably the all-time style to deal with a negative review? Posting a thoughtful, gracious response. Address any issues brought up in the review, share how your company is working to ensure it doesn't happen over again and offer a solution to the client. For example, if they had a negative client service, you might apologize and offer them a discount lawmaking for a future purchase.
• Generate more positive online reviews. One of the best means to combat negative reviews? With plenty of good reviews. Strive to offering the best products and/or services to your customers, brand certain they're satisfied and then inquire them to postal service a review.

If you lot ultimately make up one's mind to move forrard with a lawsuit, it'south of import to consult a lawyer immediately. And especially before you invest also much fourth dimension, money or energy into the process. They can give you deeper insights on your legal options, the viability of your instance and whether you might exist able to successfully sue for damages.

What Non to Do

There are also a few things you definitely DON'T desire to do when you notice a negative review for your business, including:

• React immediately: Reading negative comments sting. And so when yous read one, your knee-wiggle reaction may be to respond in the moment (e.g., past posting a comment defending yourself). Just if you respond immediately, you may react poorly (e.g., lashing out because you experience angry or insulted). Instead, give yourself time to cool off before you write a measured response.
• Ignore the content: While it tin can be hard to read negative or critical things about yourself or your concern, if there'southward truth to the negative review, information technology can be a growth opportunity. Don't immediately ignore the content of a review merely because information technology's negative. Instead, sit with it. See if there's any truth to what the review says and develop a plan to address the issue moving frontwards.
• Retaliate: If a comment is either insulting or spreading lies about your business organization, you may want to retaliate confronting the reviewer. But it'south incredibly important not to retaliate online because that retaliation can come back to haunt you—especially if y'all plan to file a defamation suit.

Here's a existent-life instance:

A contractor filed a $700,000 lawsuit against a homeowner who claimed on Yelp and Angie's Listing that he damaged her townhouse, billed her for work he never completed and stole her jewelry. Originally, the court awarded the contractor a victory and ordered the homeowner to have down the annotate nigh theft.

But before going to trial, the contractor posted his ain negative comments in response, claiming that since the homeowner never paid, she really stole from him.

Ultimately, the jury determined that while the homeowner defamed the contractor, the contractor's later on negative remarks too defamed her—so no damages were awarded. Essentially, the contractor'due south online retaliation may accept cost him a $700,000 settlement.

Deal With Bad Reviews Effectively

No one likes to come across bad reviews for their business—especially if they're malicious, harmful or untrue. But now that yous know the most effective ways to deal with them, you'll know how to navigate the situation next time yous come across a negative comment—whether that'due south by managing it on your own or consulting a lawyer to move frontward with a defamation suit.

This post was updated in August, 2020.

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Source: https://www.freshbooks.com/blog/can-you-sue-over-a-bad-review

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