Please take a moment to make sure that your organization's Google Business Listing is accurate.
Unfortunately, it is all too easy to modify a Google Business Listing. Recently, we discovered that a client's Google Business Listing telephone number had been changed without their knowledge or consent. The false telephone number was answered by an "addiction referral service" - a lead generation call-center. Another client's phone number was changed to a competitor's number. When confronted, both the call center and the treatment center attributed the transposition to Google's error. This fraudulent practice is not uncommon, nor new, but can be difficult to detect and address. Regularly reviewing your Google Business Listing information and your free or paid review website listings is perhaps the only way of avoiding misleading or fraudulent practices from redirecting calls to your program to an unauthorized source. However, simply identifying potentially erroneous or fraudulently entered information is just the beginning of the work. In some cases, significant time and resources may be required to correct these issues.
In some cases, completely fabricated business listings are being used to generate leads by leading consumers to believe they are physical business locations. In the image accompanying this article, we see the Google Business Listing for a treatment program claiming the name "Drug Rehab Treatment Jacksonville". As far as we can discern, there is no such business at the address provided or on the website referred to. Calls to the telephone number listed are answered by a call center that represents "many addiction treatment options". On its face, this does not appear to be a legitimate use of a Google Business Listing and could mislead unsuspecting people in need. This practice may lead some people to call what they believe to be a local treatment program only to discover later that the center they are speaking with is in a completely different location. Many anecdotes testify to the fact that these practices lead to some people being 'sold' to a treatment program out-of-state, incurring unnecessary travel and boarding expenses.
Falsifying a business's listing information is especially troubling because it is likely that a prospective patient or referrer is trying to contact a specific program. This means they have already done their searching, identified the business they wish to contact, and may at first believe that they are speaking with the correct treatment program when they call. This is a waste of the caller's time and takes that person or their loved one one-step further away from getting the care they need. This problem also places an undue burden on treatment center resources that have to take the added time to monitor their listings and attempt to fix fraudulent information.
If you have questions about managing and repairing your Google Business Listing, we would be happy to speak with you at your convenience. Call us at (781) 937-0667.