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Guiding employers in reviewing, promoting and sharing online reviews
Editorial by Christian Saint Cyr
National Director / Canadian Job Development Network
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Did you know that employees who post online reviews are required to disclose any relationship with the business, product or service that they're reviewing, or their competitors, even if the review is their honest opinion? No? It’s likely most employers don’t realize this either.
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This is a classic area where job developers can build their subject matter expertise and support local employers.
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Last week, Canada's Competition Bureau began warning businesses to not use reviews posted by their employees without proper disclosure, or they could be subject to penalties under the Competition Act.
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The Bureau is calling on businesses to train employees to ensure that business connections are disclosed when posting reviews about their company or its competitors and implement compliance programs to make sure these rules are being followed.
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In cases where it isn't possible to make a disclosure, such as assigning a star rating to a product or business, the Bureau says employees should not make the review.
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Last month, the Competition Bureau issued a hefty fine to Amp Me Inc., a Montreal-based company that developed an app that synchronizes multiple devices to amplify the sound of music. The Bureau said its investigation found the company had purchased positive reviews from third parties between 2019 and 2022 and manipulated their app's ranking and rating on the iPhone App Store.
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The Bureau had imposed a penalty of $1.5 million, but due to the company's inability to pay, Amp Me was only required to pay $310,000 in addition to $40,000 to cover the cost of the investigation.
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In 2021, the Competition Bureau issued fines of $5 million for the online travel agency FlightHub Group Inc. and $400,000 for two of FlightHub's directors after finding that the company posted fake positive customer reviews, in addition to charging hidden fees.
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In March 2022, the Bureau released a set of guidelines titled the 'Five Star Fake Out' providing guidance to Canadian employers on how to recognize and reject fake reviews.
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They also suggest how consumers can 'Report businesses to the Competition Bureau' which is where this can be an issue for many employers we work with.
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In its guidelines, the Bureau says consumers should be wary of overly positive or overly negative reviews, businesses with a sudden spike in reviews, businesses with nothing but 5-star ratings, reviews from newly-created user profiles, and multiple reviewers using similar phrasing.
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Instead, consumers should also read the 2- to 4-star reviews, look at reviews over a long period of time, and consult multiple sources when shopping around.
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In our discussions with employers, it might be helpful to simply mention the Competition Bureau’s warning to employers as well as caution employers who are pressuring staff members to provide online reviews.
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While it’s unlikely that a small local employer is going to face the same fines as a large national corporation, the public embarrassment of being called out by the Competition Bureau is something any wise employer would like to avoid.
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For any clients we’re working with, a valuable interview preparation tip can be suggestions about how the employee might build positive goodwill with customers to encourage legitimate public online reviews.
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It’s said that people typically leave reviews based on an outlier experience (good or bad) and our candidates can make specific suggestions in their interview about the steps they would take that would create an amazing outlier experience that people will want to share online.
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We’ll be discussing online reviews and the recruitment process at this morning’s meeting of the Canadian Job Developers Network, today Monday January 29th at 8:30am Pacific, 9:30 Mountain, 10:30 Central, 11:30am Eastern, 12:30pm Atlantic and 1:00pm in Newfoundland! Click here to join the session
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