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Dealing with Negative Reviews
By Chris Linnett | February 28, 2008
Following up on last month’s column, The Omniscient Jerk, which examined the basics associated with businesses being listed in local listing and results, I now want to take a look at the logical next consideration:
How can businesses respond when they receive less-than-favorable reviews?
Being listed is one thing, but once your business gets noticed, there will very frequently be situations in which at least one customer will have occasion to post a negative review about it. What’s a local business owner to do about this unwanted publicity?
Based on our first-hand experience and observations of other local Web publishers, there are three common paths:
1.) Flame the publishers: Businesses that receive poor customer reviews on local sites sometimes contact the site owners or publishers directly, asking them to remove a negative post or, in some cases, remove their business from the site altogether. This is often accompanied by some mention of our esteemed legal system. Many local business owners and their legal counsel are not well-versed in the immunities available under federal law to publishers of websites that provide open forums for both customers and those same local business owners to post messages. Federal law shields these publishers from liabilities associated with messages posted by third parties.
Still, in certain cases, publishers can and do oblige, especially if the negative post violates the site’s terms of use. Sometimes it is a judgment call, and placing the publisher in the middle of sparring factions is not the best solution for anyone. If the post is simply a freely expressed opinion, such as ‘the service at this business was disappointing,’ most site owners stand firm, because a local site’s life and legitimacy involves providing a forum for all valid opinions.
2.) Get directly involved: Better would be to view the review as constructive criticism pointing out issues that may need to be addressed. It is often difficult for businesses to know how customers perceive their product or service, and here are customers interested enough to tell them. Granted, some reviewers write untrue reviews for unkind motives, but that brush is too often used to paint over legitimate reviews. Presume innocence until proven guilty.
Then, engage the reviewer and the community in a conversation online. Comment on the review if that functionality is available, or write another review responding to the first, but always clearly state you are the owner. These are your potential customers reading the reviews, and this is a way for everyone to see there is a human behind the business, and how the issues are being addressed. There is a growing trend of businesses using this new medium to reach out and extend some old fashioned customer service. More often than not, these interactions lead to positive outcomes, with consumers being impressed that the business owners cared enough to respond.
Avoid the temptation to become directly involved by writing a review pretending to be a customer. These are easily spotted and do more harm than good for the integrity of the business.
3.) The most common option is to simply let it play out. As hard as it might be for a business owner to read a negative consumer review about her or his business, odds are good that if the business is a good one, other consumers will weigh in with positive views to balance or even contest the negative ones. There is a wisdom of crowds, and the community will out the truth.
There are more than 15 million businesses and more than 300 million people visiting them in this country. It is not all going to work out perfectly. Some customers will make the effort to express what they thought, good and bad. From there, the decision is up to the businesses how to respond. Talking about the issues is always best. And turning an unhappy customer into a happy one is good for business. It will be interesting to continue monitoring what local businesses do to ensure the accuracy of their core data and address the expressed opinions of their local customers.
Topics: National advertisers, Neighborhood, Local Advertisers, Local Search, Content, Advertising, Uncategorized |
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:09 pm
Great article.
Your readers might want to try www.Measuredup.com a leading customer service review website where people share reviews with other users and with companies. Companies that are involved with and value customer service read Measuredup to keep up on what people are saying and to be able to improve customer service.
Small business can use Measuredup to build their customer service reputation and stay up on what is being said about them.
It is free and easy to use.