Advice for businesses dealing with reader comments
I love this page from Yelp, which describes itself as a “online city guide made up of real reviews from real people.”
Among the highlights from their page, which addresses the concerns of restaurants, retailers and other commercial businesses about dealing with readers’ reviews:
DON’T overestimate the impact of a single negative review. It happens to even the best businesses. In fact, in speaking to Yelp users, we’ve learned that negative reviews sprinkled in with favorable reviews often act to enhance the credibility of the positive reviews by illustrating the honesty and openness of the Yelp environment. That said, if you see a trend of negative reviews, you may want to take this feedback and determine if there is a way to improve your business.
DON’T lash out at the people who have written negative reviews about you. Tempting as that may be, we see that backfiring in some cases as the Yelp community may up the ante and even engage in “vigilante justice” by spreading more negativity (see below for alternative).
DO use Yelp private messaging to thank reviewers for writing about your business but consider waiting 48 hours before responding to any negative reviews as a cooling-off mechanism. Be sure to put yourself in the mindset of your customer, and recognize that your tone may come across as defensive, so tread lightly.
Advice we could use in our newsrooms, for the most part.
Why don’t more retailers send coupons by text message?
Maybe I’m late to the party here, but I just learned that Borders will now send its coupons to your cell phone by text message. Used my first one last weekend buying a couple of books for my son. It was fantastic. Just got my second text coupon this morning.
I am on the Borders’ e-mail list. I dutifully receive my weekly batch of propaganda and coupons…and leave them at home when I’m out and about. I never have my bookstore coupons with me when I need them.
Why don’t all retailers offer this option? I (almost) always have my cell phone with me.
Rebutting the arguments against story commenting
Inspired by Steve Outing’s recent post entitled, “If user comments go crazy, be thankful; seek more,” I wanted to generate ideas about rebutting the arguments against them.
Yes, there are some newspapers out there that haven’t implemented story comments yet. And there are journalists who are concerned about having story comments. I asked some of the members of the WiredJournalists social networking site to offer some of their favorite excuses — and their replies — to mix in with some of my own. Read more
Why e-mail and the Internet are still a miracle
Just back from a week on vacation. I spent the week hanging with my son while my wife and daughter were out of town. And when we weren’t hanging together, he was amusing himself with his friends and World of Warcraft, while I worked on rebuilding my church’s web site.
The miracle of the web is this: While building this site, I found a theme and a calendar widget I liked for the web site of the Narborough Congregational Church in Leicestershire, UK. I e-mailed the folks at the web site on Friday to find out the name of the calendar plugin. Two hours later, I received an answer. Mind you, this was Friday – before Easter weekend! Read more
Uno Chicago Grill — an example of good customer service
I’m a big fan of customer service stories — good or bad. I’m remiss, sometimes, in not recognizing good examples. Last weekend, I had one at the Uno Chicago Grill in Chesterfield. Long story short, I snagged my jeans on an exposed nail in the booth where I was sitting.
I tore a small hole in the back left leg of my pants. When I pointed out the nail, and the hole, to the waiter, he apologized immediately and agreed that the nail could be dangerous. He sent the store manager, Mike Reckert, to my table. He also apologized immediately and, likewise, said he’d have the nail repaired as soon as we left.
He asked whether I’d have my jeans repaired or replaced; I didn’t know at the time. He gave me his card and said to send him the bill, that it would be taken care of.
Truth is, I can afford to have the pants fixed. I likely won’t even bother because he did all the right things. It really is amazing how easy it is to make a customer happy.
Kurt's Tweets- @bfelice Hey, thanks so much for the heads-up on this. Great to see.
- Funny. SW airlines magazine bothers to mention that pacemakers are always authorized electronic devices. #fb
- A disgrace, St. Louis. People still litter? http://post.ly/OUsk
- Redemption for Lindsey Jacobellis in snowboardcross? Only click if you really wanna know. http://bit.ly/99OgbM
- West Countians: If you're in the market for a pancake supper tonight, there's one here: http://stmartinschurch.org.