About Posting Reviews of Businesses (good and bad)...

[Geo]

This is a bit of an open letter to business owners...

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Many people use this awesome resource we call Sowal.com for many reasons...

I personally use it to learn about the area and its events. I use it to make friends and keep in touch. I use it to engage in friendly (and sometimes heated) political debate. I use it to buy and sell stuff. I use it to keep up with new restaurants and to learn about old ones I haven't tried...

On occasion I use it to review restaurants and share my experiences patronizing our local businesses. Most of the time these types of posts are positive. Since December 2006 I recall writing only two negative reviews- once was about a poor experience I had at a Grayton Beach restaurant (to which I have returned several times since then with great results) and the other was just this week about a bad experience I had with the Sandestin branch of a shipping company...

Both times I have shared negative comments about local businesses some folks have said that I did so to damage the reputation of these businesses and questioned airing these comments in a "public forum"...

My thought is this-

Like it or not- the world and Sowal has changed with the advent of the Internet. If you aren't good at what you do and/or you don't take care of your customers they will tell others. Word will travel fast and to many people. The good news for business owners is this works both ways- If you do a great job and make someone love you they will tell others. Word will travel fast and to many people...

Rest assured- If someone has a bad experience and posts it here others will come to your defense if it is an isolated incident. And you will be provided with an opportunity to present your side of the story but MOST IMPORTANTLY-

You will be given a golden opportunity to shine (and have the potential to end up better than you were if the negative stuff was never written about you) IF you handle it the right way when so many are watching. So don't blow it...

 

[Beach Runner]

I think that a professor has it much worse than a business as far as online reviews go. There are many websites where students can give grades to their professors totally anonymously and without any way for the prof to defend him/herself. There is no dialog among the raters as there is on SoWal.com, so if a prof gets a bad review, it doesn't get challenged.

A restaurant owner can get a bad review if a particular waiter does a bad job or if a sous chef messes up one day. But being a prof is an individual matter -- if one gets unjustly criticized, there is no way to share the blame or defend one's professional reputation. That stinks.

I think that there is a way to diplomatically make suggestions for improvement for a particular business, just as students can make anonymous comments on the student evaluations done in-house at their college/university. One could also talk to the business owner before broadcasting complaints about the business on the Internet. Unlike in a problem with a professor, a customer doesn't get a grade from a business owner, so the customer should have no fear of complaining to the owner.

Of course, complaining about a particular waiter with his/her knowledge of who you are might get you a bugger or whatever in your food on the next visit.;-)

 

[NoHall]

You certainly make wonderful points, Geo, and you're right about the world-wide-web-world we live in.

Think of it this way: Most feedback that businesses get is negative. They'll have a complaints department, but how often do you hear of a "praise" department? Folks are slower to share their kudos than they are to run someone down.

When I hear something good about a place, I remember it because no one ever has a happy axe to grind. If they are telling something good, they have absolutely no reason not to speak and have gone out of their way to compliment services, goods, etc. They have paid their money for something and come away satisfied.

That said, I usually attribute anything NEGATIVE that I read on here about a specific business or person as ugliness on the speaker's part. For instance, I could easily gripe about the terrible service at a store I visited on Friday night. It took more than 5 minutes for one of the 3 salesgirls to get to me (and it was a tiny store!) All 3 were occupied with other customers when I got in, but the first available employee chose to engage in a non-profit-producing conversation with a salesgirl who trotted in from a neighboring store while I was impatiently waiting. I did not get any help in finding a product--terrible service.

Never mind that I was on the road for the previous 6 hours, or that I'd been on the phone with several pea-brained customer "service" reps from another company for half that time. Never mind that I was multi-tasking my butt off.

My point in sharing this story is that a lot of things contribute to bad experiences. Both customers and service providers are variables. Excuse me for quoting Pollyanna, but she says that if you look for bad you will surely find it. If I want to hear the dirt on a business, I ask a local in a private conversation. It's just too easy to say bad things about a business.

How about we just use the public forum to concentrate on the good things we find? If you have a bad experience, share it but leave the names out as a gesture of good faith.

 

[Paula]

My perspective is this. If a person has a bad experience, they should bring it to the attention of the person/manager of the business right away to give them a chance to fix it. If the person/manager takes the complaint seriously and makes up for it, there's research to suggest that people can be even more loyal to the business because people are generally forgiving and are very impressed when someone makes up for a mistake quickly and sincerely. Even a poor customer experience is an opportunity for a business to shine and create an even more loyal customer. If, however, the business doesn't take it seriously, it's likely that the person will be even angrier and tell even more of his/her friends (in person or on the Internet).

 

[A_South_Waltoner]

You certainly make wonderful points, Geo, and you're right about the world-wide-web-world we live in.

Think of it this way: Most feedback that businesses get is negative. They'll have a complaints department, but how often do you hear of a "praise" department? Folks are slower to share their kudos than they are to run someone down.

When I hear something good about a place, I remember it because no one ever has a happy axe to grind. If they are telling something good, they have absolutely no reason not to speak and have gone out of their way to compliment services, goods, etc. They have paid their money for something and come away satisfied.

That said, I usually attribute anything NEGATIVE that I read on here about a specific business or person as ugliness on the speaker's part. For instance, I could easily gripe about the terrible service at a store I visited on Friday night. It took more than 5 minutes for one of the 3 salesgirls to get to me (and it was a tiny store!) All 3 were occupied with other customers when I got in, but the first available employee chose to engage in a non-profit-producing conversation with a salesgirl who trotted in from a neighboring store while I was impatiently waiting. I did not get any help in finding a product--terrible service.

Never mind that I was on the road for the previous 6 hours, or that I'd been on the phone with several pea-brained customer "service" reps from another company for half that time. Never mind that I was multi-tasking my butt off.

My point in sharing this story is that a lot of things contribute to bad experiences. Both customers and service providers are variables. Excuse me for quoting Pollyanna, but she says that if you look for bad you will surely find it. If I want to hear the dirt on a business, I ask a local in a private conversation. It's just too easy to say bad things about a business.

How about we just use the public forum to concentrate on the good things we find? If you have a bad experience, share it but leave the names out as a gesture of good faith.

Absolutely agree here. I also think the only one qualified to "review" anything is a professional in the industry that pertains to what is being "reviewed". We all have opinions but if you are "reviewing" something, good or bad, and don't have any credentials or qualifications pertaining to what you are yapping about, than you are just another person with a personal opinion. Why would I care what you have to say?

Reviews aside, scathing complaints - a totally different thing - made anonymously on a public message board is just a bunch of b******** and moaning to me. As NoHall points out, taking it up personally with the owner of the business is the proper way to handle a truly cruddy experience and if said cruddy experience was NOT an isolated incident, the free market economy will work it's charm and the business will drive itself right out of business anyhow. The powerful word of mouth conversations - between two or more people who are actually together - is what business owners should be focused on making sure are more positive than negative.

 

[lerxst]

Just curious Geo, but is this thread a result of the "wild olive's" flap?

 

[kkddbb]

Just curious Geo, but is this thread a result of the "wild olive's" flap?

its simply a way of trying to be the nice guy after smearing a local small biz. people are tough behind a computer. no company should be smeared on a public form from a single persons alleged experience. and one can bet that the smearer is likely not a business owner themselves and havent a clue what it takes these days to stay afloat and how frustrating it could be to be smeared on a public forum by one disgruntled person. its wrong all day long-period. and no, im not the owner of any of these businesses is play.

 

[Susan Horn]

[quote Reviews aside, scathing complaints - a totally different thing - made anonymously on a public message board is just a bunch of b******** and moaning to me. quote]

Excellent point. People are emboldened, IMHO, by anonymity, and feel much freer to say things they would not say if their identity were known.

As a writer, editor and voracious reader in many genres, I can say for a fact that it is easier, by at least one order of magnitutde, to come off as quite clever with negative criticism, than it is to write engagingly and cleverly in a positive or at least balanced way. I know how to do the clever-nasty thing really really REALLY well, but I have made a conscious choice to find more positive or balanced ways to communicate.

For instance, I made what could be construed as a complaint the other day-- about music in a local restaurant that interfered with my dining pleasure. But I tried to state it in a helpful way, so if the owner/proprietor/manager is reading on sowal, they might consider my comments. Also, I mentioned the good stuff about the restaurant too.

I like reading what people write about local business, positive and negative; I just ignore when posts start getting hateful or nastily personal, or seem to be more aout stirring the pot than sharing helpful information and ideas.

I'm really grateful to have this online venue, and enjoy reading a lot of what I find here. Thanks to Kurt and all Sowallers!

 

[GoodWitch58]

While I might not have handled this the way Geo has...I find it interesting that so many are attacking him for hiding behind a message board...

FTLOG, he has his photo and name on his posts--and he was talking to one of the owners. As he pointed out, using the Internet these days is similar to talking with your buds over a beer somewhere; and we all do that kind of thing all the time if we have had a bad experience.

Maybe the business owner will take this opportunity to benefit from the criticism -- and if that happens, Geo will actually have done him/her a favor, regardless of how many people may disagree with the method Geo used to bring it about.

Who knows? Maybe Geo will tweak his methods a bit the next time something like this happens to him...at the very least, I don't think it is accurate to say that he is trying to hide his criticism by using this board.

 

[scooterbug44]

My first thought when someone posts a complaint is "And what did the business say when you brought the issue to their attention?"

Saying nothing and then biatching on Sowal isn't cool, but when you have a complaint and the business handles it badly I have no problem w/ you then posting about it.

I also form good/bad impressions from how those businesses respond - the ways they handle it certainly run the gamut from great to more appalling than the original complaint.