Lemons into Lemonade

What to do if the buzz goes negative?

The internet is both a gift and a curse for most companies. It allows them access to more potential customers and positive product reviews, but it also opens them up to criticism. Even when businesses try their best they may fall afoul of specific customers and a particularly stinging online review can truly make a business look bad and drive away potential profits. So what are companies to do about bad “buzz” from the online world?

Censoring Doesn’t Work

The most important thing is for them to not try to censor it. The internet considers censorship the highest form of insult, and any attempt to get rid of or cover up a bad review will only bring more attention to it.

This is known as the “Streisand Effect” due to the fact that Barbara Streisand once sued a photographer for millions of dollars when he posted a photograph of her house on the internet. The ensuing bad press surrounding the lawsuit ensured that the photograph became widely viewed. Many companies who likewise try to get rid of negative reviews only find that they would have actually been better off if they had ignored them, as the bad buzz only gets worse as more and more people read about the attempt at censorship.

Opportunity or Problem?

It’s key to approach bad buzz as an opportunity instead of a problem. Maybe the customer is a jerk with high expectations, but in general they are simply someone who is unhappy and wants to vent on the internet where they can be somewhat anonymous.

If possible, companies should try to reach out to the offended customer and make amends. Usually people turn to the web when they have nowhere else to complain, and if it is possible to reach out to a complainer and correct their problems, bad buzz can often turn into good buzz.

Time and time again, a reviewer who gets his or her concerns answered later on will retract a bad review or even begin singing a business’s praises after they have had some basic needs met. Most people who complain about a restaurant or store get worked up not because they had some obscure need, but because they expected a basic service to be there and it wasn’t. Correcting this mistake and apologizing not only makes a company seem compassionate, it wins over customers who would otherwise badmouth the place for the rest of their lives.

Find the Funny

It is also possible to turn a bit of bad buzz into a joke or even a marketing campaign. While correcting the source of a problem is the first step in any bit of bad buzz damage control, making light of it is often a good way to help earn forgiveness from offended customers.

The most famous instance of this is the Restaurant Delphino and Pizzeria Delphino of San Francisco, which was inundated with bad Yelp reviews from time to time despite an overall high rating. Rather than ignore these bad reviews or emphasize only the good ones, the owner had various bad reviews printed out on t-shirts for the staff to wear while running the restaurant. This sort of consumer friendliness jujitsu disarms the negative critic in the face of his more satisfied counterparts and allows customers to know that each and every customer review is read carefully. Even those which are insulting.

Everyone Makes Mistakes…It’s What You Do Next

The vast size of the internet and the ease by which people can post reviews to Yelp or FaceBook means that it is impossible for any company to avoid damage. Even beloved stores and corporations ultimately make a mistake sooner or later. All it takes is a single surly employee or botched delivery in order to receive an onslaught of negative buzz.

The only cure is to confront the problem head-on, first by accepting it and then by trying to make amends. Offering replacement products, rain checks, or gift cards equal to the time and money lost is immensely helpful in winning back good buzz from a bad review. It is important not to insult the reviewer by offering them a token consolation prize which is inferior to what they intended to have in the first place.

The only way to handle bad buzz permanently is to do everything possible to make amends and show everyone on the internet that you or your company can go above and beyond to make right their mistake. Such an effort to make things right will not only help someone decide to detract or amend a bad review, it will make it clear to everyone that you read your reviews and try to do what’s best for your customers.