But what if the flaw is a fiction in a post by an angry customer seeking revenge? A trio of researchers at University of Richmond, West Virginia University, and University of Texas at San Antonio address that situation in a research article aptly titled, “That’s Not What Happened: Dealing with Consumer-Generated Fake Retaliatory Reviews”.
When faced with fabricated claims and exaggerated information, your first impulse may be to reply in a way designed to arouse guilt or shame in the poster. But you might then get concerned how such a sharp retort would alienate your social media audience by coming across as mean-spirited.
Based on their data analyses, the researchers say you can avoid the downsides. The worst alternative is not correcting the record. Your failure to respond risks lowering purchase intentions among prospects who have read the fake review. This was found to be especially so for newer businesses and businesses with less positive reputations.
Between arousing guilt or shame, arousing guilt is preferable. As used in consumer research, the emotion of guilt is specific to the situation—“I did something wrong”—while the emotion of shame is global—“I am a bad person.” Efforts to elicit shame are more likely to come across as mean-spirited.
A shame-arousing message used in the studies read in part, “You should be ashamed of yourself for writing such a dishonest review…. Being untruthful reflects who you truly are.” A guilt-arousing message read in part, “You should feel guilty about writing such a dishonest review…. Your actions have a real impact on our business.”
With all of this, a finding from a study at University of Western Ontario and Queens University in Kingston, Ontario provides additional perspectives on the posting of fake reviews motivated by revenge. People who feel they have been betrayed by a retailer or a product often experience shame. It might be shame about having allowed themselves to be persuaded. It might be shame at even considering posting what consists of lies. Whatever the source of shame, though, this indicates that a retailer’s shame-oriented response would feel quite appropriate to the poster of the fake review.
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Aim Away from Shame
Image at top of post based on photo by Rafael Minguet Delgado from Pexels
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