Executive Roof Services appears to have made a mountain out of a molehill. ERS has decided to sue a couple after negative reviews were posted online. The couple, renters, and their landlord contracted the roofing company to fix the roof. The couple wanted to know the specs and timeframe for the repairs.
The couple called the ERS office, and this was where things went off the rails. Since they were not direct clients of ERS, the renters were not entitled to the timeframe on the repairs. Things appear to have gotten testy over the phone, and as the couple claimed, they were hung up. The couple left negative Google reviews. The couple claims that they were called back by the office manager and received a text message advising that the reviews needed to be removed.
ERS filed a lawsuit over the couple leaving negative reviews on Google and filing a complaint with the BBB. ERS is learning an important marketing lesson, The Streisand Effect. The Streisand effect s a social phenomenon that occurs when an attempt to hide, remove or censor information has the unintended consequence of further publicizing that information, often via the Internet. ERS’ attempted to get the negative reviews removed by suing the couple for $112,000. KGW’s Cristin Severance covered the story, and the story went viral. Ken White retweeted it, and the damage was done.
Yelp is currently monitoring their listing. The review feature on Facebook has been turned off. Google caught wind of the issue and removed the reviews posted because of the story going viral. ERS had marked their Google Business Profile as permanently closed. They have hurt their business more. Google does not display permanently closed profiles in a search unless a person searches for the business name and address. Google is still showing the business result when you search for the business name, but this is only temporary. ERS will not show in the map pack results for any roofing search queries. The story is far from over. Newsweek covered the story, and the story is now nationwide. The story is only beginning. The court case is in the works, and time will tell how it plays it. ERS’s
A friend of mine reached out to me about this case with questions. He wanted to know why the couple left the two reviews under aliases and if this was a violation of Google’s TOS. This is not a violation of Google’s TOS. Google allows people to use aliases when registering their accounts. The reviews themselves don’t violate Google’s TOS either. People don’t have to be a customer to leave a review. The couple called and spoke with the business, so they had a direct personal experience with ERS. The fact that ERS called the couple back and sent a text message further validates the legitimacy of the review.
What’s interesting and needs to be examined further is how many reviews did the couple leave? ERS has received six negative Google reviews since the couple left the reviews referenced in the KGW story. The timeline of events is not clear. When did the company call the couple back? When did ERS text the couple? Was it concerning the two negative Google reviews, or did ERS reach out when they saw more reviews being posted? Were the six reviews left because the ERS called and texted the couple back? Did the couple ask people to attack the business? We know that the couple has been vocal about their experience with ERS. Did any of their online postings lead to the additional reviews being posted?
As I stated, the couple was able to leave negative Google reviews. The additional six negative reviews if the couple left them or their friends over the couple’s experience are not allowed. They would violate Google’s TOS if they were left by the couple or because of their experience with ERS and not actual customers. If the couple left these reviews, they could be sued for lowering the overall rating. If they asked their friends to post reviews, they could be held responsible. It doesn’t look good that the couple didn’t use their real names and locked down their profiles to see their reviews. Hopefully, those business reviews don’t come back to bite them in their ongoing legal case. I will be curious to see how this case pans out.
Comments
Will be interesting to see how it pans out… I suspect ERS will stop the suit.
When in doubt be very careful. Gee, with all the smoke could there be a fire??? I have never dealt with this outfit and am glad of it. Plan to buy else where. Best to not get involved.