Should You Try to Keep Negative Customer Reviews Off the Internet?
No one has to be told what a single negative review from a customer can do to your business. But a few statistics can't hurt.
The just-released 2011 Net Promoter Industry Benchmarks study of more than 22,000 U.S. consumers nationwide, found that bad customer experience forced 22 percent of customers to stop doing business with a company during the second half of 2010. It also suggested word-of-mouth endorsements from friends or colleagues are the most trusted form of information when purchasing.
So that one bad review online, while it may be helpful in fixing some customer service problems, is also inflicting untold damage on your sales.
Skweal: A New Approach to Customer Complaints
But how do you manage these online takedowns? I've been following the work of Tyler Crowley, the founder of a site called Skweal, which promises just that. It offers a private way to send a customer complaint to a business, and lets a manager take care of the problem quickly, avoiding the potential embarrassment of a review that lives on the Internet for a long, long time.
Skweal is easy to use, and as a consumer advocate, I like the ability to connect a customer with a manager to quickly address a grievance. Makes my life a whole lot easier.
For example, when Paul Recchia checked into the Residence Inn Downtown at UAB in Birmingham, Ala., which belongs to the Marriott family of hotel chains, he discovered his Internet connection moved at dial-up speeds.
Instead of posting the complaint online, as hotel guests sometimes do, Recchia shot a note to Marriott through Skweal.
"I got a call within an hour from someone wanting to fix my Internet," he says.
Then the general manager contacted him, thanking him for the heads-up on the sluggish Internet connection. Turns out a transformer blew out, and the hotel wasn't aware of it.
"I was amazed that this new site got my message to the GM so quickly," says Recchia.
(It is perhaps a little ironic that the story was posted online anyway, as a customer testimonial on an online bulletin board. But on balance, even the account made Marriott look good.)
Services like Skweal are likely to become more appealing to companies as they look for ways to manage their online reputations. In a world where a few bad reviews can drive customers away, who wouldn't want to take these comments to a private room, where the unhappy customer could be dealt with?
Even if the offer is ultimately rejected by the customer, the company has bought itself valuable time. The customer has had a chance to cool off a little. The resulting review is less likely to be as devastating as it had been a few days before.
Controlling the Negative Comments
The Skweal model exists elsewhere, of course. Companies offer tightly-moderated forums on their sites where customers can vent, and which are carefully monitored by managers. And while it's great to have a direct line to your customers, where grievances can be discreetly handled, I wonder it that's good for the open Internet.
Isn't the point of the Web that information -- both good and bad -- is freely available? Shouldn't customers be able to see both the positive and negative customer ratings, and then make a decision on their own?
As a customer, I want more information, not less. But as an employee, I see the value of quietly dealing with customers who are unhappy -- and keeping the complaint offline.
Christopher Elliott is a consumer advocate, syndicated columnist and curator of the On Your Side wiki. He also covers customer service for the Mint.com blog. You can follow Elliott on Twitter, Facebook or his personal blog, Elliott.org or email him directly.
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