Dealing with the Negatives

Dealing with the Negatives

It’s the ideal scenario.  You have the idea, you research it thoroughly, you sort out the finances, you get things up and running, and then you quit the corporate world to be the type of mom you’ve always wanted to be, and who just happens to run a successful business from home.  People like what you have to offer, you build a reputation and make sure you keep your brand out there by doing all the right marketing.  You’re doing it all.  You’ve solved the modern dilemma.  You have time for the family.  You can see the children off to school, be there when they get home, go to parent meetings, soccer matches and school plays, and at the same time you are still use your intellect, and the skills and experience you have, to make a significant financial contribution.  Now that the children see you all the time, you think that sometime in the future it may even be possible to pack them off to their grandparents for a week or two, whilst just you and Mr Right take that long dreamt of Med cruise or trip to Hawaii, and without you both having to feel guilty about not spending all your holiday entitlement with your little darlings.  You’re happy, you’re family are happy, and then it happens.  You open up the website, or the e-mail from a friend that points you in the right direction, and there it is, the first bad review of your business.

Negative Reviews

The first time is crushing.  You thought everyone liked what you did, but it appears you were deluding yourself.  You’re no stage diva, so naturally you get over the disappointment quickly.  You go into professional mode.  If it’s a valid complaint you sort out the problem, you explain and apologise if necessary, and perhaps you even do something to sweeten the deal, such as offer a discount or future incentive, if you think it’s appropriate and prudent.  The second time it happens isn’t such a shock, but you’re good at what you do and you take pride in your work, so you’re never dismissive of a client isn’t happy, and you know better than to blame a supplier or courier for letting you down, or glitch in the software.  The client doesn’t care about such things.  They’re dealing with you, and you chose the supplier, the courier and the software, so it’s still down to you.  Complaints are hopefully few, and you gain experience in how to handle them, but regardless of what you do there will always be one or two who are not satisfied with the outcome, and a few who tell you one thing in person but then use the internet to bitch about your business, particularly if they can do so anonymously.  It happens.  It happens to all businesses, but knowing that doesn’t stop business people from fretting that there are negative postings out there in cyberspace for all to read.

Research Vs Research

Should you be worried?  Well interestingly, the impact of such negative reviews has become a subject for investigation in recent years.  In April 2011 it was reported that a Lightspeed Research Study showed between one and three bad online reviews was sufficient to deter 67% of shoppers from buying a product or service.  If you are not actually manufacturing a product, then that statistic isn’t quite as frightening as it initially seems, because it appears that whilst 64% of people look at product reviews, only 38% look at reviews of the firms selling the product.  In addition the paper does not define what the customer determines as being a negative review.  However, the study does demonstrates how influential the internet has become, with 64% in the survey trusting the views of other customers, and 58% trusting the views of professional reviewers.

As in all walks of life, there is other evidence that would seem to undermine the Lightspeed findings.  More recent research reported by Reevoo has suggested that negative reviews can actually have a positive impact on business.  It found that 68% of customers trusted reviews more if they found both positive and negative postings present, and that of those who actively sought out negative reviews a higher proportion than average actually went on to purchase the goods or services they were interested in.  The paper also reported that 30% of customers suspected censorship or fraudulent postings if they saw no negative reviews at all.

Savvy Customers

On the face of things, the Reevoo research would appear to contract the earlier survey by Lightspeed in it’s conclusions about the impact of negative reviews.  However, as well as being a business mom, you are also a consumer of goods and services, and so you know that the findings are not necessarily incompatible.  It should be remembered that customers are savvy, and also increasingly sophisticated in how they analyse the market.  It may well be that they differentiate between what they identify as minor gripes and substantive complaints; that they roughly calculate the balance of reviews, with three negative out of five indicating poor performance, but with three out of five hundred being excellent.  The distribution of such reviews may also be significant.  A recent rash of poor comments may be indicative of a deteriorating service, whereas a patch of complaints sometime ago may signal that the business had a problem which they have now resolved.  A random distribution of negative postings over a long period of time may simply be what the customer would expect to see with any business.  Your customers may want a perfect experience every time, but they are intelligent enough to know that nothing earthly is ever perfect. Therefore, what they expect is that a business will strive to make their experience in dealing with them as near perfect as possible, knowing that sometimes we can all fall a little short of the mark.

Sources: lightspeedesearch.co, Reevoo.co, Econsultancy.com

Article written by: Izzy Woods wiki-bee.com