Does anyone here remember Letters to the Editor in the newspaper?

I know they still exist, but I’m old enough to remember the pre-Yelp, TripAdvisor, and social media rampant world, where you expressed your dislike the old-fashioned way.

Maybe your thoughts got published for the world to see, or maybe not.

But in today’s modern world, at any given moment, someone can put their thoughts on turbo blast in a nanosecond for the entire world to see.

What does this mean for you as a business owner or leader?

Well, it means that reviews are a double-edged sword.

Collecting positive reviews for your business also opens you up to negative ones.

And boy, can those negative ones sting.

In fact, we have clients that get so worked up over negative reviews that they hire us to help craft professional responses for them.

That’s right, when it comes to reviews, you should be responding to ALL of them – the positive and the not so positive.

Why?

Because 93% of people are persuaded to buy a product or service based on reviews.

93%!!!!

And let’s say that negative Nancy (no offense to anyone named Nancy that’s reading this) unfairly represents the service she was given at your business. And instead of a reader seeing her version of events AND your well-crafted, articulate, professional, relatable response, all they see is Nancy’s version.

More than likely, Nancy is going to have a big, unfair chance of ruining a sale for you or hurting your reputation, even if what she said is untrue. Thanks a lot, Nancy.