July 1st, 2010 by Conrad Saam, Marketing

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After my wedding, someone said to me, “no one remembers the food at a wedding, I hope they don’t remember yours.” The food was horrible, the service appalling, and the caterer showed up so late that my wedding party had to set up the tables for the reception.

Being a Web 2.0 kind of guy, I left a review on Yelp to inform others about my experience.

Yesterday, I received an email through Yelp:

Hi Conrad, I accidentally stumbled onto your review that you wrote about your experience with XXXX XXXXX, my company, last summer and I wanted to find out if anything was ever done to satisfy your complaints and disappoinments. I don’t recall talking with you directly after the event and if I did I truly apologize for not remembering.  If you would be so kind as to call me when you have a minute. I would love to resolve this and somehow earn your respect again.  What name was the order placed under and what was the date?
Thank you very much,
John”

I’m a true believer you can build raving fans by proactively responding to negative feedback.  Granted it’s a little harder for a wedding caterer – I can’t really make up for the fact that they were understaffed, took over 30 minutes just to serve the main course and forgot the chocolate in the chocolate strawberry dessert.  So I appreciated John’s approach, but he’s falling a little short.

Best Practices when Dealing with Negative Client Reviews

1. Proactively Monitor Your Online Profiles – don’t “accidentally stumble” onto feedback about your company.  Use Google Alerts to proactively monitor your online reputation.  Avvo makes this really easy with email notifications when something is added to a lawyer’s profile.
2. Reach Out – responding to unhappy clients is a hallmark of good business.  While you can’t please everyone all of the time, you shouldn’t dismiss all disgruntled former clients as nutjobs.  Most online review forums that protect the identity of the reviewer (like Avvo), also offer facilitate confidential conversations – for example, John sent the email through Yelp and he never saw my email address.  Avvo has a similar process where our Customer Care team will reach out directly to the reviewer.
3. Offer to Make It Right – John offers to work with me to resolve this issue.  This is the foundation of great customer service.
4. Make it Easy to Contact You.  You’ll notice in John’s email that while he asks me to call, he fails to provide a phone number or email address. Because the review came through Yelp, I can’t even find his email address.
5. Follow up Quickly – My wedding was in 2003.  I left the review on Yelp more than a year ago.  At this point, the likelihood that I’m going to invest time with John is close to zero.   The likelihood that during the past 7 years I’ve warned numerous engaged couples about my experience with the caterer is exactly 100%.
6. Manage Your Overall Review Profile – one negative review isn’t the end of the world.  People reading reviews know that you can’t please all of the people all of the time.  However, if the balance of your reviews are negative, you may want to look very critically at your business.  John’s business has two negative and one positive review.  With innumerable options available, would they make your wedding caterer shortlist?

Many people are uncomfortable providing negative feedback in person.  Online reviews may be the only indication that you have a grumpy ex-client.  How (and when) you respond can make all the difference.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 1st, 2010 at 8:18 am by Conrad Saam, Marketing and is filed under Conrad Saam Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.