CUSTOMER REVIEWS are NOT always RIGHT!

Is There Such A Thing As BAD PRESS! ( A BAD REVIEW)

With over 20 years of marketing and social analytics experience, the one thing I can truly speak on is how people/consumers value reviews. 93% of consumers read customer reviews before making a decision about a local business. When it only takes 1-3 reviews for 40% of potential customers to form an online decision about a brand.

The value of how ones experience with a company is vital and extremely crucial to someone else's buying decision. Yes, it is true that someone will buy based on a review and how much positive press a company gets from the public. But is the same to be expected with Bad Press! Can a company regardless of the 1 or 10 bad reviews given to one company still thrive and generate new customers.

The answer is, YES! Companies rely strongly on various marketing strategies and sometimes even pay for positive reviews. Which most consumers are not completely aware of. Search engines like Google, Yahoo, Yelp and BING are against these types of practices. So is a bad review truly a bad review. So where one might see the BAD REVIEW as a disadvantage the other might see it as an opportunity. Bad Reviews are bad because 98% of the time these reviews are fueled with a high level of emotion and are mostly rants. Even though search engines will not admit and will refrain from taking down a review, based on it policy of the 1st Amendment right to freedom of speech. 

In the early years of press, journalists were given the responsibility to rate and review company/vendor experiences. But this information had to be printed which gave the writers/reviewer time to digest their experience and allow them to weigh the true pros and cons of the whole experience. Reviews are like butt holes everyone has one. Even though one good review can be beneficial to vendors the same review with a bad experience can also be extremely harmful. Who wouldn't want the sweet fluffy, happy review that makes every business glow and shine for all the world to see!

So here is where the issue gets a little messy for the Vendor. Google, Yahoo, Yelp and BING allow customers under the 1st Amendment right to speak their mind about services rendered; However the customer is protected by the 1st Amendment to potentially falsely accuse and make claims about the work product and quality of the vendor that might not entirely be true. Meaning that the vendor can be falsely accused of something that was either a half truth or a flat out lie as a way to hurt and tarnish the vendors reputation. This review might of come about due to a small mishaps or misunderstanding between the customer and the vendor.  Also if a claim about a vendor has been made to tarnish the reputation or value of the company without having proof of the accusation, if there is one and if it renders true this would be considered a presumption and not a fact about the companies/vendors services. 

So in short, Customers are protected by the 1st Amendment Right to condone and be condescending to the vendor while the vendor guidelines for response under goes a more filtered approach from Google, Yahoo, Yelp and BING. If a vendor were to respond to a customer in the same manner, the vendor would be penalized and they would be asked to reconstruct their response to relate more to the issues addressed.

So this is probably not the hottest topic out there for Brides but this be should an issue to truly understand. Understand that customers are allowed to exploit reviews as a way to hurt a business versus using it as way to help a company/vendor improve their services.  Reviews have become a place for customers to gain instant emotional satisfaction by raging out every emotion onto a review. Reviews are instantly view-able to new customers and can cause instant damage to a vendor who has no marketing background and social analytics understanding of how to handle this. Customers reviews are now just meant to voice your opinion versus helping the vendor to help grow their business. Reviews are truly meant to aid the vendor to address the issues you might have experienced as a customer and to help them correct this problem for future customers. 

All it takes for someone to make their decision is ONE BAD REVIEW!

Reviews are like unexpected bombs that explode with each new customer that stumbles across a vendors website. So let's say you are Bride that likes a vendor but you are turned off by 1 or 3 bad reviews about this company. Do you just cancel them out because of the review or do you at least try to find a response to this review, so that you can hear the other side of the story. Statistics show that most vendors who respond to a customer review are more likely to be vendors you can trust. 

Happy Shopping,
Wedding Garage Studios