The plain truth is that people bad mouth others all the time, and the internet means that bad online reviews dont just pass from acquaintance to acquaintance but they can spread far and wide to every corner of the globe. No business is immune to bad online reviews, sometimes things just go wrong even if you offer the best quality service and products, so everyone needs to be prepared to manage their online reputation.
Recently, a doctor took legal action against someone who gave him a bad review on an online opinion site, Yelp.com, yet critics suggest that taking legal action on a bad online review is an unnecessarily extreme response and in turn invites more negative criticism. After all, we are all entitled to freedom of speech, so if someone expresses thoughts and feelings that place your business in a negative light, is court action really the answer?
David Ingram offers advice to any business on how to handle bad online reviews. He suggests that legal action should only be taken if the review is nasty, downright personal, or in some way illegal. Before taking the matter to court, see you if you can resolve it with the website on which the review was posted online first. Read their policies before contacting the appropriate person on the website. Otherwise, bad online reviews should be looked at neutrally and approached carefully.
David Ingram offers the following advice:
1. Use Google alerts to notify you of online references to your company; if the reviews are in a public forum, you can respond to them in a calm manner to solve the problem or appease the person who is criticising your company. If you are respectful and polite to the person who is complaining, other visitors will see your business in a more positive light.
2. If your involvement in the discussion only throws fuel on the fire, see if you can contact the customer offline to resolve the problem and encourage him or her to update the online review. If you succeed in satisfying a previously disgruntled customer, your company ratings will soar.
3. If youre left with no options, ignore the bad and highlight the good. This certainly doesnt mean writing your own online reviews, which if discovered would be disastrous to your reputation. Rather ask loyal customers to write positive reviews or comment on your services. And get the good press going.
With the growing importance of consumer forums in search engines and search results negative pieces often showing up for brand name searches. MediaVision are specialists in dealing with SERM, to read more, visit their page on search engine reputation management.