The Terror of the Bad Review

No one likes to be criticised, even if it’s not a criticism of you, even if you didn’t do anything wrong.  Even if it wasn’t YOUR fault.

But people like to complain, and a faceless review is the perfect place to let off steam.

A good review is great, it’s lovely, it makes you feel all warm inside and it’s just good manners to say ‘thank you’ in reply. 

But a BAD review, well that’s where the good stuff is!

I don’t know about you, but when I am searching for a  business on Trustpilot or a restaurant or hotel on Tripadvisor, I filter straight to the 1 stars. 

I want to know

-          How many there are.

-          How eloquent was the person who wrote it, do I think it’s real – authentic – plausible….

-          But the BIG ONE, how did the business respond?!!!

This is going to tell me everything I need to know.

Are they listening? Do they care? Are they taking the person’s complaints on board? Do they want to improve?

As a business, this is your moment to shine. 

Are you listening?  = Did you reply

Do you care? = ‘I am so sorry to hear you didn’t get the service you expected’

Are you taking the complaint onboard? = ‘Please call me or email me directly on this number/email address and I will personally look into this for you’

Of course, you may already know about this customer or this complaint, they may have been a complete nightmare, unreasonable, rude etc

But the people who are reading that review don’t know that and don’t care. 

So you must bite your tongue and suck it up.

If it is a genuine complaint, you now have the opportunity to turn it around and make this customer your biggest advocate, because although they had an issue, you went out of your way to make it right. 

They will never forget that!