bad reviews

[Rewire]

I was reading an article about a business that filed a lawsuit against an individual for posting a false negative reveiw of their company that they say lost them business. I was wondering how they discovered this with all the sites out their offering reviews? Then the next question I trhought was how important is it to track what is being said about your business and how do you handle a bad review? It seems that a competitor could easily post something false about you . How often should a business search these sites?

 

[cowboyjwc]

What is it they say? Give someone good service and they'll tell a friend, give some one bad service and they'll tell everyone.

I live in a fair size town (126,000) and you would be surprised how many people know each other. I've seen resturants close down for nothing more than slow service.

 

[Dennis Alwon]

My philosophy is to give good service so you won't get bad reviews....

Seriously I have no problem with other opinions. I have been around the block many times and people know my work. I am sure someone is not happy in all the years I've been here so if they feel obligated to express it- so be it.

 

[PetrosA]

I've seen a few cases where customers had good service but still got on Angie's List and trashed the contractor, throwing outright lies into the reviews. I think it has to do with a troll mentality. They could be looking for a discount or freebies, or they could just be getting their rocks off on the attention they get from writing a negative review and engaging the contractor into a defensive position. I'm thinking about this myself as I recently had a customer give me a low grade on Angie's List and write lies in his review. There is no way to prove my side or disprove his claims. I think the best option may be some kind of response, but one which doesn't open the door to further discussion. Maybe time to hire a marketing specialist...

It's one thing to deal with a troll on a newsgroup or forum. It's another thing altogether to deal with one who can negatively impact your livelihood.

 

[Fulthrotl]

My philosophy is to give good service so you won't get bad reviews....

Seriously I have no problem with other opinions. I have been around the block many times and people know my work. I am sure someone is not happy in all the years I've been here so if they feel obligated to express it- so be it.

yep. say anything you want, but please get the name spelled right.
the idea that someone would file a lawsuit 'cause of an opinion
expressed on the internet, the cutting edge of mental health, as
we all know.....

is ludicrous.

dennis, why don't we each say something that the other one
doesn't like, and we can sue each other for $10,000 and write
each other a check for $10,000 dollars as a settlement, and
deduct it off our taxes as a business expense?

or, better yet, let's short some stocks, and then post something
on twitter, to knock the stock market down 10%.

hell, it worked yesterday. someone tweeted, and the lemmings
made a break for the cliff.

could the people who lost money in the market yesterday sue twitter?

i'm sure they can...... :angel:

ohoh... i'd better behave before i get sent to the off topic bin again.

 

[Fulthrotl]

I've seen a few cases where customers had good service but still got on Angie's List and trashed the contractor, throwing outright lies into the reviews. I think it has to do with a troll mentality. They could be looking for a discount or freebies, or they could just be getting their rocks off on the attention they get from writing a negative review and engaging the contractor into a defensive position. I'm thinking about this myself as I recently had a customer give me a low grade on Angie's List and write lies in his review. There is no way to prove my side or disprove his claims. I think the best option may be some kind of response, but one which doesn't open the door to further discussion. Maybe time to hire a marketing specialist...

It's one thing to deal with a troll on a newsgroup or forum. It's another thing altogether to deal with one who can negatively impact your livelihood.

i'm not a big fan of angies list. it's gone from crown driven reviews to pimp per view.

angie got greedy.

 

[Dennis Alwon]

I've seen a few cases where customers had good service but still got on Angie's List and trashed the contractor, throwing outright lies into the reviews.

I really can't imagine why anyone would do this if they had good service. Obviously they felt very different about it.

The idea of any list of reviews will always have someone who isn't happy. We look at the totality of the review not just one customer as that would be suspect when everyone else is satisfied.

Wayne-- I'm game and I'll start the lawsuit....

 

[Fulthrotl]

I really can't imagine why anyone would do this if they had good service. Obviously they felt very different about it.

The idea of any list of reviews will always have someone who isn't happy. We look at the totality of the review not just one customer as that would be suspect when everyone else is satisfied.

Wayne-- I'm game and I'll start the lawsuit....

you certainly did.... my name isn't wayne... i've been misquoted....

not to mention you may get additional suits filed from all people
named wayne, who were insulted at being put in the same bin as me.

we need to set this to music... we need a score....

how about the eagles.... "get over it"?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1H-Y7MAASkg

 

[Dennis Alwon]

you certainly did.... my name isn't wayne... i've been misquoted....

Sorry Randy-- getting old

 

[Rewire]

Sorry Randy-- getting old

Please dont derail this thread. With more people turning to the internet to find service providers and their decision to call you or to not call you could be based on an online review. You can reaserch a compnay with a few keystrokes and if you are not aware of negative reviews of your business you could be loosing customers. If someone was making claims that were baseless or simply untrue then I think legal action would be a remedy . If someone accused you of stealing from their house in an online review what would your response be?

 

[petersonra]

Please dont derail this thread. With more people turning to the internet to find service providers and their decision to call you or to not call you could be based on an online review. You can reaserch a compnay with a few keystrokes and if you are not aware of negative reviews of your business you could be loosing customers. If someone was making claims that were baseless or simply untrue then I think legal action would be a remedy . If someone accused you of stealing from their house in an online review what would your response be?

Just how would you prove that you did not steal from their house?

If I got threatened with a law suit by someone that did not like what I posted I might just change the review to say something like this:

"I took down the original review when the contractor threatened to sue me over the opinion I expressed about his work in my review."

For most people that would represent a much worse review than mere allegations of theft. I might even put a copy of the letter from your lawyer up if by chance the lawyer mentioned the alleged theft.

 

[Dennis Alwon]

Please dont derail this thread. With more people turning to the internet to find service providers and their decision to call you or to not call you could be based on an online review. You can reaserch a compnay with a few keystrokes and if you are not aware of negative reviews of your business you could be loosing customers. If someone was making claims that were baseless or simply untrue then I think legal action would be a remedy . If someone accused you of stealing from their house in an online review what would your response be?

I am in no way derailing your thread and if you look above I responded to your question. We allow a comment back to others such as "thank you" or something like that.

Now you responded with basically the same question that has already been answered. In the case of accusing you of stealing I may call them up and ask them to remove it-- In this case you may have a legitimate claim but that not is the same as a bad review and their opinion of what transpired. If I think you did a crappy job and you think you did a wonderful job well so be it. You don't have a leg to stand on IMO, But I am not a lawyer and neither are any of us here.

Again one bad review will not upset the cart of 50 good ones. Accusing you of murder or stealing is perhaps another story esp. if they have no proof.

 

[infinity]

There are companies that say that they can find your negative reviews and work on changing, deleting or providing positive rebuttal to negative comments that have been posted. As any restaurant owner what they think of Yelp. :roll:

 

[Rewire]

There are companies that say that they can find your negative reviews and work on changing, deleting or providing positive rebuttal to negative comments that have been posted. As any restaurant owner what they think of Yelp. :roll:

I can see this becomming a cottage industry as more and more review sites pop up. I think the anonimity of the internet tends to make people embelish their comments both positive and negative. Another problem is many believe what they read on the internet I mean when one hacked tweet causes the stock market to drop a hundred points imagine what a negative review can do to a business. Here is a link to the article about tghe lawsuit filed over a bad yelp review. Do you think he over reacted , does freedom of speach cme into play?
http://www.wjla.com/articles/2012/12/critical-yelp-review-sparks-lawsuit--82786.html

 

[cowboyjwc]

If you were accused of stealing that may be a whole different thing than being accused of doing bad work.

Back in the late 70's, early 80's the city of LA made smoke detectors madatory in apartments. We got several large jobs and I got paid $10 a detector to put them in and on a good day I could do about 20 and on a bad day 10, but I also was only making an hourly wage that paid about $300 a week, so you could see why I wouldn't want to mess this up.

My boss get's a call one day from an apartment manager with three complaints, one that I had stolen a gold necklace, one that I had scratched their brand new water bed, and one that I had broken an expensive bottle of perfume.

We went into the one with the water bed first, they showed us where it was scratched which was on the side of the bed, I pointed out the matching scratch on the door jam. Case closed.

Now the necklace, as the woman is calling me a thief and telling us how much that necklace meant to her the manager bends down and picks it up off the floor from behind the dresser. Should take better care of things that mean so much to you. Case closed.

The bottle of perfume, broken by the owner, but hoped that they could get us to buy a new one.

I was never questioned again after that.

If you were wronged then, set the record straight. If they just didn't like your work, well you know what they say about opinions.

 

[Sierrasparky]

I have been trying to steer clear of these online trash networks. I know there will be a time I cannot escape. The problem is that too many customers these days are trying to get work for free. There seems to be unavoidable confrontation way too often.

 

[GUNNING]

Doctors have been fighting this for a long time. There are services that promote and protect reputations. Its indefensible to squash every complaint and you are only as good as your last sale. I also think fair and equitable wins the day. Hopefully my next new employer will think the same.