Slammed by an Online Review Lately?
It starts off like this: “Worst service…I have ever seen”. And ends like this: ”…Don’t ever do business with these guys, EVER! Followed by a 1 out of 5 star rating. Ouch, that really hurts. It hurts doubly bad because studies show that consumers assign much higher credibility to peer reviews than to company generated messaging. The scary part for business owners is that the reviewer can slam you anonymously, whether you deserve it or not.
Here’s how to proactively manage your online reputation to ensure your ratings fairly match the quality of products or services your business provides.
1. Expect to get Slammed: Recognize two immutable truths: 1. unhappy customers – and unscrupulous competitors - have a built in incentive to “punish you” in a review and will spend the time and effort to do so. 2. Satisfied customers - left unattended – will stay silent.
2. Don’t Fight ‘Em: You can never win an argument with a customer, so don’t try. Avoid responding to any but the most slanderous reviews. Your time is probably better spent influencing happy customers to go online and review you.
3. The Good Side of Bad Reviews: Mine for gold in bad reviews. Sure, we can all handle just about any amount of praise, but who’s going to tell us what we’re doing wrong? You know, the things that most of our customers won’t tell us to our faces.
Eric Kirsammer, owner of Quimby’s Bookstore in Chicago, also avoids engaging his critics openly online. Instead, Kirsammer uses negative reviews as a tool to improve customer service. (By Kasey Wehrum | Jun 1, 2009 / Inc)
The takeaway is simple: If the anonymous nature of online reviews help people be more forthcoming, shake off the hurt pride and smile at your good fortune.
4. Set a “Good to Bad Ratio” Goal: If you believe, as I do. that every business is doomed over time to get slammed, then work proactively to encourage happy customers to review you. If 49 customers say your fabulous and the 50th says you’re dog food, fabulous wins every time.
5. Monitor Online Mentions: Reputation management is not a one time thing. Be ever vigilant. Search regularly for what’s being said about your company online. For that matter, see what’s being said about your competitors too, both pro and con. Look for actionable items. A quick Google or Bing of your company name + review is one step. Search Twitter too.
6. Be Proactive: First let’s talk about prevention. Prevention is better than a cure. If it takes getting slammed by a reviewer to jump start your efforts at reputation management, just be prepared to roll that heavy barrel up the hill instead of down.
7. Review the Reviewer: If you’re like me, you appreciate an honest, thoughtful reviewer, whether they post something positive or not. I always click on the reviewer to see what else they’ve reviewed and what they have to say. If they’ve only reviewed one business and they slammed it -or they’ve reviewed a bunch and they love everyone, I factor that into how much their rating will influence me.
Case Study: Checkered Flag, a neighborhood carwash here in Irvine, California launched a campaign to encourage customers to rate them online. The rules where simple:
a. Review them on any one of these sites: google, yelp, yahoo, local.com
b. Get a free car wash
c. Limit 1 per customer
d. Print out the review and bring it to the cashier for your free car wash
e. Offer expires Oct. 31, 2009Checkered Flag handed out fliers at the register announcing the offer to patrons. The staff were very careful not to influence customers to write a good review, which earned them a righteous nod in my book. A PR friend of mine took exception, questioning whether this would be interpreted as ”paying for a review”. I think not. I see it as reimbursing the customer for the 15 to 30 minutes of their time it takes to post a review – and clearly ethical so long as the business does not try to influence customers to write good reviews – beyond their consistent delivery of good products and services.
The results so far in Google, Yahoo, and Local.com are overwhelmingly positive for Checkered Flag as of this writing. Yelp reviews, as typical of Yelpers, were less glowing, yet mostly positive.
In summary, what people are saying about you online matters. Savvy companies are making online reputation management a strategic focus. The take away here is that if you don’t have the bandwidth or inclination or marketing wherewithal inside your business to nurture your online reputation- and most small businesses don’t, then outsource it. Else, bare your loins and pray the nasties leave you be.
Nice writing style. I look forward to reading more in the future.
Enjoyed the article. Full of practical tips for small business owners. The concrete examples were also very helpful and insightful.
This article identifies and analyzes extremely well the problem of online slamming of a business. However, the lasting value of the article is its suggestion to a business owner about how to react to very real risk of slamming. For example, the case study about the car wash which gave its customers the opportunity to write online reviews was specific valuable guidance to a business about how to create a legitimate positive online presence. Identification of additional ways of creating a positive online presence would make this article even more valuable to the reader. Finally, in regard to the final paragraph of the article, a brief explanation of what it involves for a business to “outsource” the nurturing of its online reputation would be helpful.
Beth, glad you found value in the article’s content about managing a business’s online reputation. You’re right that these tips are relevant to small businesses – and big ones too for that matter. Thanks for your comment.
Jerome – Thanks for your comments. You’re right to point out that the risks and opportunities of reviews to business owners are very real.
As far as providing more examples, I used the car wash, but I could just as easily have used the recent experiences of a pet store owner who had a great word of mouth reputation on the street, but was getting slammed by Yelp and Google – in particular by the same two reviewers. Unfortunately, they had not been managing their online reputation when they first came to me for help and as a result there were a dearth of reviews. The negative ones, two out of a paltry three total reviews, were way out of proportion to what was really going on at the store. By the way, my advice to them, beyond the 7 items in this post, was to institute a new program whereby they contact every customer within a week of their taking an exotic bird home, and check on the satisfaction of the customer and the health and happiness of the bird. The owner implemented this and has seen the quality and ranking of her online reviews improve considerably. The ways in which businesses can manage their reviews is as varied as the ways in which they can improve customer service. Awareness of the need is the critical first step.
And finally, you ask about what’s involved in outsourcing online reputation management. Ad Agencies abound that provide this kind of service to medium and large companies. For the small business owner, finding the right partner takes entrepreneurial skill. This is a truly nascent field.
Start by formulating scope. What services will this partner provide? Will they manage the website? Will they help the business develop its online marketing strategy? Will they help develop and manage online marketing (organic and paid search and advertising)? Will they help with the company’s social marketing presence on sites like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube? Will they produce and manage videos? What’s the potential ROI (return on investment) if they increase revenue by X? Once they determine the scope and estimated ROI, companies should determine a budget that makes sense in their situation.
Jerome, hopefully this answers your questions. Thanks for your thoughtful comments.
@Jerome J. Carrasco
Jerome – Thanks for your comments. You’re right to point out that the risks and opportunities of reviews to business owners are very real.
As far as providing more examples, I used the car wash, but I could just as easily have used the recent experiences of a pet store owner who had a great word of mouth reputation on the street, but was getting slammed by Yelp and Google – in particular by the same two reviewers. Unfortunately, they had not been managing their online reputation when they first came to me for help and as a result there were a dearth of reviews. The negative ones, two out of a paltry three total reviews, were way out of proportion to what was really going on at the store. By the way, my advice to them, beyond the 7 items in this post, was to institute a new program whereby they contact every customer within a week of their taking an exotic bird home, and check on the satisfaction of the customer and the health and happiness of the bird. The owner implemented this and has seen the quality and ranking of her online reviews improve considerably. The ways in which businesses can manage their reviews is as varied as the ways in which they can improve customer service. Awareness of the need is the critical first step.
And finally, you ask about what’s involved in outsourcing online reputation management. Ad Agencies abound that provide this kind of service to medium and large companies. For the small business owner, finding the right partner takes entrepreneurial skill. This is a truly nascent field.
Start by formulating scope. What services will this partner provide? Will they manage the website? Will they help the business develop its online marketing strategy? Will they help develop and manage online marketing (organic and paid search and advertising)? Will they help with the company’s social marketing presence on sites like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube? Will they produce and manage videos? What’s the potential ROI (return on investment) if they increase revenue by X? Once they determine the scope and estimated ROI, companies should determine a budget that makes sense in their situation.
Jerome, hopefully this answers your questions. Thanks for your thoughtful comments.
@Beth Beth, thanks for your comments. Glad you got some value from the post. Yes the content was directed at small business owners, but it’s worth noting that the concepts apply to medium and large enterprises as well.
That’s one of the worst fears of every business going on-line for the first time… “what if I get a bad review”.
In my experience bad reviews are a big opportunity, doing right by customers that rightly or not feel mistreated is the biggest viral marketing opportunity every business has at their disposal, and the internet gives you a way of identifying them and make them happy.
In the “real world” they would just do the rounds badmouthing your business, and you wouldn’t have any way to address the situation in public.
My recipe is embrace the criticism, fix it and use it to your own advantage.
Luca, more businesses should cook with your recipe: “…embrace the criticism, fix it and use it to your own advantage.”
I visited your site, luckymethod.com. Definitely worth a look for the technologist.
Thanks for your contribution.
Great post, Steve. We monitor our online reputation in a very informal way – being a mid-size publishing company spanning multiple markets, it’s sometimes hard to know where to look.
Side note: I stumbled upon Sidewiki the other day. What are your thoughts on this new Google tool and how it can affect company’s online reputation?
@Lee
Your comment “It’s hard to know where to look” pretty much sums it up. There’s a real need for better tools and tool box collections and more accountability on the part of reviewers. It seems that companies like Google are trying to engineer accountability into tools like Sidewiki while maintaining the user’s anonymity.
I think Sidewiki is a cool concept and it will be interesting to see if and how well it’s used. TechCrunch offers a couple of posts on Sidewiki worth reading: http://ow.ly/vv3g and http://ow.ly/vv5k. A related product worth checking out is WebNotes https://www.webnotes.net, that makes it easier to track, compile, and report media mentions.
BTW, here’s a good place to visualize what Sidewiki looks like on a high comment page: http://ow.ly/vx6p (you’ll have to have Sidewiki plugin in your browser to see comments).