You love online reviews. After all, how else can you appreciate the good things in life without that occasional nasty review to put things in perspective? Remember how good you felt after getting flamed on the internet for putting ice in your customer’s iced coffee? Or receiving a one star rating for a weekend getaway because the reviewer got dumped in your hotel? Good times.Despite how much you might despise online reviews, I think most of us have come to realize online reviews matter. A negative review doesn’t just hurt your pride. It hurts your wallet. In fact, Harvard Business School has done a study that shows a difference of one star can mean 5-9% in sales.
As websites like Yelp and TripAdvisor have changed the dynamic between businesses and their customers, businesses have been learning how to deal with their online reviews. Unfortunately, many have learned the hard way. So here’s a list of Dos and Don’ts to spare yourself from their pain (starting with a Don’t because it’s probably the one that comes first to mind):
Don’t buy fake reviews. Just don’t do it, buddy. It’s tempting, but Yelp has gone as far as run sting operations to catch businesses that are trying to buy fake reviews. And the penalty is literally a big fat red scarlet letter on your listing.
Do monitor your listings. Your first step to managing your online presence is to know what customers are saying about your business in the first place. And there are plenty of no/low cost resources for you: Google Alerts, email alerts from the directories themselves, and Reputology.com’s freemium tool.
Don’t get into arguments with reviewers. Don’t insult them and don’t use slanderous language, even if the review is blatantly false. It might turn into a PR disaster, like it did for chef Marc Orfaly of Pigalle who got into trouble for the following response:
"you must enjoy grossness if you know how much it tastes like. secondly, if you had any clue about eating out, you would of informed your server you were unhappy with some thing, while at the restaurant..."
So um, keep your tone professional and friendly, if not to win back that customer but to win over potential customers.
Do respond quickly. Anecdotally, pilot customers of Reputology have stated that they can get an unhappy reviewer to return to their restaurant or edit the review 8 out of 10 times if they can respond promptly.
Don’t respond and then not follow through. You run the risk of making the reviewer angry even more.
Do leave a public response. You should still try to message users privately if it’s an option at the directory. But a public response communicates to both old and new customers that you are attentive and care about what they have to say.
Don’t leave a generic response. Granted, there aren’t too many ways can you apologize and wish the customer give you an opportunity to give them a better experience the next time. But vary your language a little bit otherwise people might think you’re on auto-pilot and not really paying attention.
Do respond to positive reviews. This is probably more optional, but many restaurateurs and hoteliers make it a policy to reply to every review to demonstrate their commitment to customer service.
About the Author: Jack Yu is part of a team of MIT grads helping business monitor and manage their online reviews. They built a freemium tool called Reputology.com. He's here to get the word out about Reputology and share some of the team's learnings from having now monitored close to 1,000 business locations.
