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These days, it seems like everybody’s a critic, an expert, or, at the very least, a customer with an opinion. No matter what your business is, the odds are pretty good that every move you make — good or bad — is being tracked, logged, and regurgitated for the masses via online reviews. Never before has the customer wielded such immediate power to affect your business.
Understanding the landscape of online reviews and how they can impact the trajectory of a company or product is crucial to excelling in today’s business climate. Once you get it, you can take the power back to control your company’s reputation and consumer perceptions. To master the world of online reviews, it’s important to start at the beginning.
Where Do Online Reviews Come From?
Even if your company doesn’t have a website or the website you do have doesn’t have a place for customers to comment, they’ll still find a way to spread the word about their experience with your product or service. Sites like Yelp!, Google+ Local, and Angie’s List give customers the forum to review virtually any business at any time.
In addition to major review sites, your fans can extol your virtues on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, or niche review sites (like UrbanSpoon) designed to focus on a specific industry or type of business. But never think your business is immune to an online post-mortem provided by exuberant customers who just can’t keep their experience to themselves.
Your city and industry have a cache of self-appointed online reviewers who see themselves as the hallowed keepers of consumer experience and will stop at nothing to spread the word about how much they love or despise your service, atmosphere, attitude, or product.
If You Can’t Beat ‘Em, Join ‘Em
Once you know where people are (or should be) reviewing your business, it’s time to jump into the fray and actively participate in your brand’s online reputation. It’s actually pretty amazing to be able to get real-time feedback about your customers’ experiences. Online reviews can give you the kind of consumer data that it used to take years to collect.
That doesn’t mean you should take every word you read online about your business to heart. There are a lot of negative Nellies out there who are never satisfied. But you should consider the specific things that are mentioned that give you a peek at how others are receiving what you’re putting out there.
And with the proliferation of social media, you have the chance to turn a negative comment or post into a humorous retort, like these big brands did on Twitter. When someone tweeted that a bird pooped on a Smart Car and totaled it, the company replied that it would’ve taken “more like 4.5 million” birds to total the car.
When Old Spice called out Taco Bell for not using real fire in their fire sauce, Taco Bell replied with their own question, “Is your deodorant made out of really old spices?” Keeping a sense of humor, along with appropriate professional boundaries, can take a potentially volatile online review and turn it into a chance to show off your witty good nature, which is likely to garner more fans than the detractors influenced by the bad review.
When Bad Reviews Go Viral
But it’s not all fun and games in the world of online reviews. Sometimes a bad review catches fire and spreads so fast it’ll make your head spin. When that happens it’s vital that you take time to calm down before firing off a response.
Many a company has come out looking worse than if they’d never responded at all. American Airlines was caught sending out an automated “Thanks for your support!” response to a negative tweet congratulating the airline for being the “largest and sh***iest in the world.” Sometimes the only thing worse than a brash, hot-headed response is a completely oblivious one that eliminates all doubt about whether you care at all.
Fortunately, the reviews most likely to go viral are the ones that make people laugh or shake their heads in disbelief. Just because it’s a “bad” review, doesn’t mean there can’t be an upside. Even reviews that seem completely out of nowhere can help the most unlikely product become a superstar top-seller.
Take the infamous Three Wolf Moon t-shirt that received life-changing reviews on Amazon. One of the best features a woman’s tale of how the shirt changed her doughy, middle-aged hubby into a hot, 20-something boy toy – which she liked until it led to their marriage being overrun by every female within pheromone-sniffing distance.
The ridiculous reviews led to the shirt taking on a life of its own that would never have been possible without the power of humorous online cronies looking to share their special brand of wit with the world.
Taking Control of Your Online Reviews
The viral knife can cut both ways. Sometimes it’s the response to a negative review that goes viral. If you make the right choices when responding, you can come out as a viral review hero. One NYC restaurant refused to take a bad Yelp! review laying down.
After being bullied for not providing take-out and letting the would-be customers “starve,” the owner got online to direct the upset reviewer to the section on their Yelp! page that clearly states the restaurant doesn’t provide take-out. They then added that, “If you were actually starving, as in a life threatening condition requiring nutritional sustenance, we would be happy to assist you…we do make exceptions for emergency situations.”
But thoughtful or clever responses aren’t the only way to control your online reputation. Real reputation management takes more than just posting a sign asking customers to “like” you on Facebook. Some companies hire reputation managers or consultants to help remove or mitigate negative reviews, make positive changes, and inspire more positive reviews.
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