Reviews: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
Customer reviews. At Chatmeter, we’ve seen it all. From raving fans to angry customers, and everything in between. When it comes to reviews, you never really know what you’re going to get.
Establishing a strong review response strategy is essential for any brand looking to protect their reputation. You have to be prepared to handle any situation. But let’s be honest, there are times when people get a little, well… dramatic. How do you prepare for the reviews that don’t fit a response template? Here’s a look at some of the most unique reviews we’ve come across; the good, the bad, and the ugly.
The Good:
“I Pee here a lot and the bathrooms are really clean. You could eat off the floor but I don’t because my knees are bad and there’s more convenient ways of eating.”
This reminds me… I need to clean my bathroom.
“I could die happy there. The food is that fantastic. Was so glad they moved into our neighbourhood.”
“Okay. This is what I’m talking about boys and girls. Gather round as I tell you about the day I fell in love… fell more in love… with food. THEIR FCKING TOT SAUCE! I can literally write a novel about how every single time I think about that damn sauce, my mouth salivates. Everything from my grilled cheese (spinach and artichoke) to my milkshake (cookies and cream, although it tasted more like a cocoa shake; maybe too much chocolate for me???) to my tots.
The Bad:
“You know why.”
“What’s the plural of ‘starbucks’”
“Diarrhea.”
“Just walked out after waiting 10 min 4 table (many empty seats), servers flying around chaotically like an ER (spoiler- the patient died). Finally got our drink orders in after 20 min of flagging & only 1 drink served. 10 more minutes of fuming & we’re done- host says as we leave ‘have a good rest of your night!’”
“Cuban roast not replenished so perhaps Columbian dark? Done except now I’m nose deep in some cinnamon flavored abomination of a coffee fit only for soccer moms with self esteem issues and half stoned gamers fueling up for their 3 hour shift sorting zucchinis at Whole Foods. This is not going to be a good day…..”
I wish all reviews were this specific.
“I was there for 37 minutes and got charged $4 for parking. It took nearly 20 of those minutes to find a space, which I did on the roof of the 8 story parking garage.
When I complained to the attendant, they shrugged their shoulder and said, “I know.” Please let me know when you are hiring more of these highly skilled and empowered helpers, for my niece just dropped out of high school and needs a gig with no skills.”
The Ugly:
“Don’t ever eat here! I bit into a Dave’s single cheeseburger and on my second bit into something extremely hard that broke my tooth in half! I filed a customer incident report with the manager, was told to call after my dentist appointment and they’ve been blowing off my calls for almost 2 months now. Do not eat here if you enjoy having nice teeth. Negative stars if I could. My tooth was broken down to the nerve, and it was extremely painful, there’s a picture as well as a picture of the huge broken piece of my MOULER with the foreign object in my meat patty Avoid at all costs!!!”
And this guy…
The owner of the Italian company, PromoSalento was sentenced to nine months in jail and ordered to pay $9,200 in costs and damages after posting fakes reviews for hundreds of businesses on TripAdvisor.
PromoSalento sold fake review packages to hotels. TripAdvisor first noticed the company offering to write fake reviews in 2015. TripAdvisor then blocked and removed 1,000 attempts to submit reviews by PromoSalento.
For any company that had fake reviews, their listings were demoted and if they continued to use fake reviews, TripAdvisor added a warning to their page to notify consumers that the business is attempting to manipulate reviews.
Bad reviews happen. The important thing is to have a strategy in place to respond to those reviews and make an effort to correct the issue. Don’t ignore the reviews and definitely don’t try and use fake reviews. Customers just want to be heard, responding to their reviews is an easy way to show you care.
When responding to reviews, even the wild ones, there are a few things to remember.
Responding to Positive Reviews:
- Thank the customer.
- Get specific about their experience.
- Entice them to come back.
Example: “Hi [Insert Name], thank you for your awesome review! We’re glad you enjoyed your stay and had a great time out by our pool! Next time, you should try one of our pina coladas – we’ll bring it right to your chair as you relax in the sun!”
Responding to Negative Reviews:
- Apologize and thank the customer for their feedback.
- Invite the conversation offline by providing a phone number or email for the person to contact.
- Keep your response short and sweet.
Example: “Thank you for your feedback Lisa, we’re sorry your experience wasn’t up to your standards. We would like to hear more about your experience and what we could do to ensure this doesn’t happen again. Please contact us at, [555-555-5555] or email [admin@mycompany.com] and we’ll try to resolve your issue as soon as possible.”
To learn more about creating a strong review response strategy, click here.
With our Workflow tool, we’ll automatically notify you when a new review comes in. You can then assign members of your team to respond to those reviews quickly. Whether your reviews need to be responded to by customer service, legal, the store manager or more, the Workflow tool can automate this process.
Customer feedback, no matter how strange, is vital to the success of any business. As much as we want to avoid giving customers a negative experience, these reviews help us to see inside our business and make improvements. Hopefully, you can at least get a good laugh from your reviews every now and then.
Chatmeter has been helping brands monitor and responds to their reviews since 2009. Request a free demo to see how we make managing your reviews easy.