Usable Advice for Moderating Complaints and Praise

Saw this article today in a newsletter I receive from MarketingVox.  I'm a big user of social media sites that relate to travel and food.  If you run into me at a restaurant you'll often see me staring at my phone.  I'm Yelping to see what people recommend.  I was at the 8oz Burger Bar in Hollywood the other day because I'd bought a Groupon deal.  I didn't know what to order so I looked on Yelp.  Most people said to go with their "8oz." burger so I did.  Good choice.  Also, several people warned that the place could be really slow.  Equally right on.  The food was really good and the server himself wasn't bad, but boy, it shouldn't take 30 minutes to cook a hamburger at a moderately busy lunchtime. I'd go again, just need to make sure I don't have to race back for a meeting.

I have similar stories relating to travel and specifically booking hotels.  I'm a huge advocate of Tripadvisor.com, especially for the forums where I can read honest feedback from travelers with similar taste to mine.  So the question is, as a hotel or restaurant proprietor, what do you do to counter people's negative comments?  According to this article, the advice is to proceed with caution. 

Hotels Go On Offensive Against Negative Reviews

Hotels are taking a particularly aggressive stance against anonymous reviews found on such sites as Yelp or Trip Advisor by actively trying to connect the data dots to identify the author.

Once the hotel has identifying information in hand it might thank the poster for the good review - perhaps with a gift basket. In the case of a negative review, it might send an email asking for either a reconsideration or a chance to readdress what was wrong with the person’s stay, according to the Washington Post.

Fraudulent Tactics

Most ominously, the Post said, a negative review could earn a poster a black mark in the guest database. Such tactics, though - on both extremes - could backfire against the industry. Efforts by the hotel to pressure a guest to remove a negative review - or reward a guest for a positive one - would be seen as fraudulent by both TripAdvisor and consumers, says April Robb, a spokeswoman for TripAdvisor. (via the Post).

That said, hotels should try to answer negative reviews even if they don’t know who posted them, Daniel Edward Craig, a former hotel general manager turned consultant and the author of the hotel-based Five-Star Mystery series, writes at 4hoteliers.

"Some would say that online reviews deserve even more time than internal surveys, as the feedback is just as - if not more - valuable, and the impact is public."

His advice:

    * Respond to any feedback that is damaging to your hotel’s reputation, even if simply to acknowledge the issue and apologize.
    * Respond to positive reviews occasionally to show you’re listening, but don’t feel obliged to reply to each one.
    * Responses should come from the highest level - but not necessarily from the owners themselves. “As a rule I discourage hotel owners from responding. They have too much at stake and aren’t always as diplomatic as managers.”
    * Respond as soon as possible - the longer a complaint is left to fester, the more business it will drive away. Just make sure you have all the facts and the response is thorough.

Don’t Be Afraid

Finally, don’t fear negative reviews, a Forrester Research report advises. Forrester recently evaluated 4,000 reviews in the Electronics and Home & Garden categories on the Amazon.com site and found that more than 80% of the reviews were positive - and the negative reviews were generally considered helpful to consumers. While the data was derived from a retail Web site, Forrester says these findings are applicable to any vertical site from travel to auto, financial services, or healthcare.

Negative reviews are also helpful to the companies themselves, according to Pehr Luedtke, CEO of Power Reviews (via Auction Bytes).  While many retailers might fear negative reviews, it is this type of specific feedback that has oftentimes uncovered invaluable opportunities for many of our clients.

"It was through the power of customer reviews that branded retailer Wine Enthusiast was able to uncover a huge unmet need in wine storage, he said: multi-purpose shelving and dual temperature. "The retailer developed what ultimately became their most successful product line to date - the NFINITY line of wine cellars."