Reviews and Reputation

Whether left by a real customer or not, many small businesses find the day that reviews make them go crazy. “It wasn’t fair,” or “They didn’t give me a chance to fix it first” are common complaints that a business owner has.

Bad reviews are a reality of owning something that the public sees. When you were in elementary school, it was easier to just ignore and move on to the other people in the class to make friends with. Now with the online landscape, that isn’t the case anymore.

Reviews Are Created Equal

This is the unfortunate reality. No matter how many times your Joe Happy-Reviewer has worked with your business, his 1 review is counted just the same as Nancy Not-Impressed. Any site that hosts a listing, becomes a level playing field for your most vocal customers (happy or otherwise). Having a plan creates a world of difference.

Responses Make a Business

How do I respond to the negative publicity on my pages? It is a regular question. Here’s our guidelines.

• Be genuinely you. Your company has a brand, a style, and should show this in their response.
• Understand this response is as permanent as the review. Don’t get down in the trenches and name-calling on your review sites.
• Ask to solve their problems. Even a boilerplate ask: Can we help resolve this in person/offline? Can help a customer feel heard.

Above all, your brand shows its true colors when responding to reviews. If the other customers are like me, the response might get more attention than the bad review.

Regular Reviews are a Lifesaver

The simplest way to fight a bad review is math. Making a plan to regularly get reviews can cause several good things to happen. Firstly, you see an uptick in your average star rating. This is the quickest snapshot of your business’ integrity and reputation to searchers.

Secondly, the total number of reviews increases. This gives more weight to how good your star rating is. Lastly, that occasional bad review doesn’t hurt so bad. The math says that increasing good reviews keeps your reputation in check, even when the Nancy Not-Impressed’s write to the world about you.

Reputation is quickly a time-consuming chore. Using our team, The Fort Digital, can save you time, money, and even gain you half-a-star or more.