Sunday Essay: Bad reviews

Sunday Essay Cartoon by John Gilbert Manantan
Sunday Essay Cartoon by John Gilbert Manantan

THE ability to share customer reviews is one of the best things about the web, at least for consumers. It’s another aspect of communications that has blown open.

Before customer reviews became widespread, potential buyers of a new commodity or service relied on early reviews by mainstream media opinion-makers. This was true of movies, books, restaurant openings, beauty products, new devices, and destinations. In the last 10 or so years, bloggers and social media influencers have taken the place of society and lifestyle columnists. But the bigger change has been the ability to post customer reviews of most experiences.

Because that ability extended to everyone with an internet connection and enough time and interest, customer reviews have, overall, become more useful than the reviews that used to be the province only of professional critics and gatekeepers. And they have the added benefit of not being held back by potential advertiser pressure.

When TripAdvisor was fairly new, I went through a phase when I would read the guest reviews of the places I was about to visit or stay in. It was obviously anticipation, which was part of the fun of trying something new. It was also a way to prepare and to manage my expectations.

But then this morphed into a phase of reading the reviews of the places that I had already been in. I don’t know if it was just nostalgia at work, but was a great reminder of how subjective a review really is.

Someone’s poor review of a hotel in Seattle didn’t make a difference to the happy memories I had associated with the place. I couldn’t remember if the décor was tired and, unlike the disappointed reviewer, had found the Asian restaurant off the lobby very good. Mostly, I had a glowing (although unwritten) review of the place because I remembered how the kind concierge told me where to get the best bagels, in his opinion, and made sure I had an umbrella before I went out for a walk, even though it wasn’t drizzling yet.

Customer reviews have long become part of all service establishments’ lives, and the management of electronic word of mouth has become a line of work, in itself. Tourism and restaurant businesses have had to learn to come to terms with it. The smart advice seems to be to get as many customer reviews as possible, because over time any bad reviews you get will be more than made up for by positive reviews, for as long as your services keep getting better.

Should bad reviews be answered? That ultimately depends on each hotelier or restaurant owner’s temperament—although it would help if one’s marketing and public relations teams had mapped out what to do in the event of a bad review. Approach it like a fire drill or an evacuation drill: something you do to get ready for events you want to avoid, yet can’t fully control.

As for us consumers, it may help to remember that reviews and the responses to them don’t tell the full story, no matter how long the exchange gets or how many people chime in on social media. It remains possible to feel empathy for both the distressed customer and the beleaguered business owner alike. It feels good to hope that a win-win solution continues to be available to all the parties concerned.

Bad reviews aren’t going to sink a genuinely good establishment, especially one that uses such feedback to rethink the way they do things, where needed, and to stay relevant to their changing customers’ desires and needs. The business leader who embraces customer reviews as a potentially helpful conversation, no matter what note it strikes at the start, enjoys a useful advantage. Plus, they gain the opportunity to become even better corporate citizens.

Trending

No stories found.

Just in

No stories found.

Branded Content

No stories found.
SunStar Publishing Inc.
www.sunstar.com.ph