I recently saw the contents of an email sent to a store that I do work for where a dissatisfied customer listed dozens of sites that he was going to add a “scathing” review on if the store didn’t bow to his, actually quite unreasonable, demands. I’m happy to say that the problem was resolved and the customer left happy. It’s worth mentioning though that despite praising the store for how well the complaint was handled and apologising for the threats he never added even one positive review to any of the sites that he had previously listed.

A happy customer will tell a friend, an unhappy customer will tell everyone… at every possible opportunity

 And, boy do the wide selection of review sites available online give an unhappy customer plenty of opportunity to do so! As well as dedicated store review sites ReviewCentre.com , ResellerRatings.com and Epinions.com there are now literally hundreds of directories and price comparison sites that encourage their users to review your store and have enough presence to be seen when potential customers are researching you.

Heading off problems

 Probably the most unfair situation that peer review sites can cause a retailer is when a single customer decides to try an make life difficult. Whilst we like to think that every customer leaves happy there are occasions where this doesn’t happen and the worse situation is that they publish their dissatisfaction on countless review sites without you even being aware that there was an issue.

 For smaller retailers in particular this can be a problem. Whilst a smaller retailer might have a handful of reviews on some of the review sites it is unlikely that they will have a robust number on all of them – meaning that a single customer (or worse – competitor!) could give the impression of a larger problem.

 The easiest way to mitigate this potential problem is to make sure that you find out quickly. Google alerts is a great tool for this. Assuming that you have a Google account already just enter in variations of your company name and website address separated with OR and Google will kindly email you whenever it finds new places that they find a new page where you get a mention.

 Trust Pilot also provides a useful service for store owners wanting to keep an eye on their reviews. As well as including reviews from their own users they scour popular review sites and compile the results on one, easy to check, page.

 These two methods at least give the retailer a chance to deal with problems as they are occurring. If one angry customer starts penning multiple bad reviews you can try to identify them and contact them – hopefully resolving the issue before it worsens.

 Safety in Numbers

 As review sites rely on the supposed “wisdom of the masses” these issues can be better protected against by having more positive reviews on more sites. If you already have a reasonable number of good reviews then the impact of one dedicated dissatisfied customer will be greatly reduced.

 Encouraging positive reviews can bring benefits that go way beyond just mitigating the occasional rogue reviewer and luckily is easily done. For stores confident in the service that they offer a simply follow up email after scheduled delivery thanking the customer for their order and asking if they might add a review will start boosting review numbers quickly.

 At the very least though store owners, or those who deal with customer service, should have a list of review sites handy at all times. If a customer goes to the trouble of sending a thank you email it isn’t a big step to then ask them if they might consider sharing their review on one of the review sites you are targeting.

 Where are you reviewed?

 Try a quick search now: Your sitename + reviews on your favourite search engine. I’m now working on a big long list of online store review sites, so I’d love to hear where your store has been mentioned.