One common error businesses make is posting fake reviews.  They understand the importance of having strong ratings in Google and other platforms, but fail to realize the critical issues with posting fake reviews.

Why you should NOT post FAKE reviews:

• Your Google My Business Profile may get banned/suspended
• Customers are not as naive as you think.  Most fake reviews are obviously fake, and even “well crafted” reviews will have an element of feeling inauthentic, and many people will intuitively realize they are fake.
• Many customers will realize right away that a review is fake, and then you will lose that opportunity
• You are covering up real issues related to operations and/or customer service.  Instead of fixing the issues causing the bad reviews you are trying to hide, you create fake ones to try to “push down” the bad ones.

And most important, IT’S JUST WRONG.

Do you really want to generate business by deceiving people?  Ethically there is no question fake reviews is not the right thing to do.

And remember, karma is real.  So if you run your business by deceiving people that will come back to bite you.