Who Needs Bad Press?

I’m sure by now we’ve all heard about the iPhone 4 debacle and how Steve Job’s email response to a user fanned the flames and caused a widespread internet discussion about Apple’s business practices. Things like this happen all the time to large companies, and usually the backlash can be a sight to behold. But what can smaller businesses learn from the mistakes of a company like Apple? Plenty.

The internet makes disseminating information not only fast, but easy. One bad interaction with you or your business, and you can bet someone is posting a negative review on Yelp or any other number of popular review sites. Usually, those negative reviews are unavoidable and balanced out by the other positive reviews about your business. In fact, many users don’t trust a business that seems to have only positive reviews, as they need the complaints to give more depth to the positive reviews. (This is one reason why trying to convince Yelp or CitySearch to get rid of negative reviews is counterintuitive.)

However, what do you do if you have negative reviews pouring in, or just one negative review for your business profile and no positive ones to balance it out? The art of customer service serves us all well in that situation. Many review sites allow a business a chance to rectify a complaint or negative reviews, and utilizing this in the right way is key. Some points to consider are:

1. Don’t make excuses
2. Are you responding to the customer complaint, or being defensive? It’s hard to keep cool when someone is saying something negative about your hard work, but you have to set your personal feelings aside and try to address their problem.
3. No matter how tempting, don’t offer promises you can’t or don’t intend to keep. If you offer free services or good to the person, make sure you make it clear you have a way to get it to them guaranteed.
4. Don’t try to discredit the negative reviewer, no matter how crazy their claims are or how bad their spelling is.
5. Accept that not every complain can be resolved. If a customer really is inconsolable over something, do your best and move on. Encourage other customers to review your services and see what they say. You may be surprised as to what kind of service people feel you are providing.

Now, many of the points above are things we already know from doing business with the public at large. With that in mind, however, remember how hard it can be keeping a level head when a customer is having a meltdown either online or right in front of you. Many business owners have made the mistake of taking criticism as personal insult, and damaged their branding by going after a negative reviewer.

One final question may be “Well, how do I even know if I have bad reviews?” One of the best ways to find this out is by doing a Google search for your business name. (Coupling your business name with review can also bring up interesting results.) Many times, Google will provide reviews to assist their customers in making a choice. Also, you can check out http://www.yelp.com, http://www.ripoffreport.com or http://www.pissedconsumer.com. All three sites are popular, and also can appear under a search for your business name in Google. To my knowledge, all three also offer a way for business owners to comment on complaints left by customers. While being hyper vigilant isn’t really the way to deal with keeping track of your reputation, checking every few weeks or even months helps you know what your customers are thinking. And knowing what they’re thinking is half the battle, right?