Unethical Customer Reviews Can Cost You Big
July 15th, 2009 by
Lifestyle Lift is learning the cost of unethical customer reviews. The New York State Attorney General has reached a $300,000.00 settlement with cosmetic surgery company Lifestyle Lift in response to fabricated consumer reviews.
It appears that Lifestyle Lift was directing employees to spend their time in reviewing their own facilities.
Lifestyle Lift is a plastic surgery chain store. From those online customer reviews one finds, which appear truly authentic, they’re not doing so great in good old fashioned customer service. According to the article in the NY Times it seems that Lifestyle Lift is resorting to aggressive reputation management techniques to suppress bad reviews and advance their own message.
Where did Lifestyle Lift go wrong?
According to the article, it appears that Lifestyle Lift fabricated reviews of their own facilities and even went so far as to create entire new “review” sites to advance their message.
To be clear, user reviews are great. The creation of alternate sites for search or more targeted messaging are a long accepted technique to obtain ranking and spread the message.
Where it becomes a problem is when these reviews and sites are presented as authentic user generated content and they are, in fact, a fabrication in support of public relations.
In short, the creation of false consumer reviews with the intent to deceive is the problem. It’s long been held to be unethical and now, in the state of New York, it’s illegal
Examples of likely fabricated reviews:
These aren’t for Lifestyle Lift, but for other plastic surgery searches. I’m not saying the following are specifically relevant to bunk reviews, but there are a couple listings – you can find them yourself – which have an abundance of positive or non-informative, yet 5-star, reviews.
http://www.google.com/search?q=breast+augmentation+san+francisco
http://www.google.com/search?&q=plastic+surgery+new+jersey
And we don’t know that these are definitely a fabrication but “cool” has 3 reviews, all of which are for the same plastic surgeon, focusing on different locations (1 of which includes “Plastic Surgery” as the business name) and no reviews for other businesses.
And “Happy”, whose reviews look more authentic has a similar instance of 1 each for business name”Plastic Surgery” and for the doctor’s name itself – again, with no reviews for other businesses.
At a minimum, what the above demonstrate is how not to ask for customer reviews. Whether “Happy” and “cool” are real people or employees of the practice, a little digging makes it appear these are inauthentic and calls into question the validity of all the reviews.
So what’s a small business to do?
As the examples show it’s a dog-eat-dog world in online reviews.
Ironically we’re preparing a much more focused post on how to get reviews but in the meantime remember:
- Be authentic! Chances are if you fake it you’ll get caught.
- Have customers tell their story. They’ll be much more believable than you.
- In doubt? Don’t do it! Lifestyle Lift should be a lesson – it might cost you $$
Of course, this case is different than most because Lifestyle Lift got busted. The New York State Attorney General has drawn the line for us with regard to clearly egregious behavior but I think we can all agree they’re not the only ones.
Where does that line get drawn for you? As with every ethical question there are many shades of gray between here and there.
I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Thanks to the Blog Herald for tipping me off to this story. It’s very relevant to our livelihood and that of our customers.
Will, as one of THE experts in online marketing for plastic surgeons I am sure you see this kind of thing on a daily basis in your competitive research. It must be sickening. I’ve found in my own business that it is really not that difficult to ask a satisfied customer for a quick testimonial after the completion of a project (or in this case a surgery). A business owner just needs to start getting into this habit. Perhaps even a month or six weeks later…I would think it would give the customer a warm, fuzzy feeling to know that someone was following up just to make sure everything was OK.
[…] Scott has an excellent piece relating to this settlement and how small businesses should approach the review process ethically. […]
Nice story. I saw where M Blumenthal also picked it up, and found out about this version from david mihm on twitter.
After reading the stories I emailed a business owner/web site owner w/ a business in NY state with a similar message as your own:
1. Don’t do this, especially in NY State, where they engage in active consumer protection.
2. I know the bus owner has a competitor who does this. hmmm….maybe that can help the bus owner I know better compete.
I agree. I wouldn’t do this. Even as some search engines (Google-> 😉 ) don’t police this at all, some state attorney generals are addressing web marketing activities that can be either false advertising, openings for ripping off customers, etc.
I’d figure out ways to get honest reviews. I’d encourage them…in fact I’d set up parameters to get them on the web.
I wouldn’t fake them at all. It could cost big time. At some point in the future, with various state attorney’s going after these scams, the SE’s and the various review sites on the web will have to address these types of scams in a serious and RESPONSIBLE manner.
[…] Unethical Customer Reviews Can Cost You Big – Search Influence […]
Lifestyle Lift is now also facing a reputation management problem, as the State of NY AG press release is quickly climbing the rankings for {lifestyle lift]. That’s going to stick with them long after the fine is paid.
@David, I totally agree. It should be a no brainer to make the ask. Particularly in so high-touch a field as plastic surgery one should know very well who’s pleased and who’s not to filter if desired.
@Dave, we get asked about this all the time. My response is “The prevailing opinion in our profession is that it’s unethical and, ethics aside, if Google ever does start policing this (please baby, please) you’ll get hammered.
@Brian, really good point. They’re pretty well screwed. It won’t be long before 70% of page 1 will be about what dopes they are. How would that make you feel about a medical decision?
@David, I totally agree. It should be a no brainer to make the ask. Particularly in so high-touch a field as plastic surgery one should know very well who’s pleased and who’s not to filter if desired.
@Dave, we get asked about this all the time. My response is “The prevailing opinion in our profession is that it’s unethical and, ethics aside, if Google ever does start policing this (please baby, please) you’ll get hammered.
@Brian, really good point. They’re pretty well screwed. It won’t be long before 70% of page 1 will be about what dopes they are. How would that make you feel about a medical decision?
[…] Lifestyle Lift, a cosmetic surgery company, has reached a settlement with the State of New York over its attempts to fake positive consumer reviews on the Web, the New York attorney general’s office said Tuesday. […]