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Negative review

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Paradox_Pizza

New member
Hi,
I don’t post much, but needed to vent to someone. We got a not so good review on Google that I am certain is not a real review. Either they went to another Italian place for pizza and confused us or it is someone local that just doesn’t like me. I hate to spend my time worrying about the many online review sites. We always come up at 4.5 stars, but those few bad comments can really ruin my day. How do you deal? I think that maybe my skin isn’t thick enough to do this much longer.
 
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You say you usually come up at 4.5 stars, that is a positive thing. DOn’t let one negative comment ruin your day.You know what they say. “You can please some of the people all the time or all the people some of the time but not all of the people all the time” There is always gonna be somebody out there that doesn’t like your pizza or didn’t like one of your staff or just had a bad day and lets face it, some people aren’t happy with anything. People are a lot more likely to post a negative comment than a positive one, it is just the way of the internet. I try not to read too much into negative reviews and let my sales speak for the happiness of my customers. If it is something that is valid and you can fix it, then do so. If not, don’t kill yourself worrying about it.
Dustin
 
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Yeah don’t sweat it. Real or not…you will have people that always complain and always are unhappy about something. Review your policies and practices and make sure you and your employees are doing their best and move on from there. Don’t waste time and your mental health beating yourself up over one review. Work on the next 100 instead! :idea:
 
Set up Google alerts so you can see when there is anything posted about your store. If there is an option to respond simply state “We encourage our customers to bring any issues to our attention immediately so we can make things right.” Other than that there is not much you can do.
 
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Another way to look at this. When I look at reviews and they are all positive, I assume they are fake, especially if there are only a few. A few bad reviews makes it look like actual people are using the site. Plus, it might make you aware of a problem you didn’t know existed. As long as there are not a ton of them, I don’t worry about it.
 
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Thanks for the feedback. I will set up google alerts. I had heard of that but hadn’t looked into it.
Susan
 
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yup, what they said! We have several reviews posted on our Facebook page and it’s been a great way for folks market for us. My wife was a bit, (ok…MORE than a bit) beside herself when one person posted a less than glowing report. Her first instinct was to remove the post, I decided to leave it. Like Adam suggested, if a site has 100% glowing reviews my first reaction is to assume they are faked. My second was in recognizing that even if blown out of proportion the reviewer had experienced something negative enough to make them even bother to leave a report so we’d best use this as a time to put aside our own bristling skin and take a clear, fresh look at our operation.
 
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I say find out where he lives and… Nevermind. If ur proud of your product and ur service, then one negative response will have no impact whatever. In fact, it speaks to your level of pride that you are even upset with this little !@#@@!#
 
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We just had 2 outrageously bad reviews on Urbanspoon posted on the same day, both with similar compaints and both saying how great our place looks after our re-fit, but we forgot the quality of our goods. It is quite obvious that both reviews were written by a professional writer.
One actually said he threw the whole pizza away after just one bite. He also called our staff grubby, lazy and rude.
It was a strauight out character assasination on our business and staff. He claimed the same “large” girl served him rudely and was grubby as was the case many years ago he last visited us. We don’t have any “large” girls on our staff nor any who have been with us for many years, so it was obvious this reviewer has never been to our store.
We did make a reply stating that we were sorry for any problems and how we strive for quality, service and keeping customers happy and asked them both to personally contact us and also asked the question why didn’t the conatct us at the time.
Unfortunately Urbanspoon attracts a lot of detractors who use poison pens to write reviews, seeing who can write the worst. Urbanspoon does not seem to have a moderator for reviews unlike many others who check reviews for authencity.
All other review sites have outstandingly good reviews about us so this one stands alone.
None the less I showed the staff the reviews as a means of getting them to make sure that they are top of every little thing and that every customer is No: 1 despite whatever behaviour they portray.
I guess when you put yourself out there you are open for the low punch below the belt every now and then.
Dave
 
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You can read my previous posts to know how thin my skin is about such issues. I worry about it too much (but at least I have self-insight on the issue :0 ). But to those who say ignore the review sites altogether, I disagree. I think it is as important to manage your online image as it is to manage your real-world image. That means being proactive about complaints, encouraging positive feedback from your guests, and self-reflecting on negative reviews to look for opportunities to improve.

For those with great numbers but terrible reviews, don’t you wonder how much bigger your numbers could be if you DIDN’T have terrible reviews??
 
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One of the seminars at Pizza Expo presented the Yelp Us Out idea. The basic concept is you give your customers a reason to put a positive review on one of the internet sites. If they bring in a printed copy of their verifiable review they receive some sort of promotional deal.
 
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pcuezze:
You can read my previous posts to know how thin my skin is about such issues. I worry about it too much (but at least I have self-insight on the issue :0 ). But to those who say ignore the review sites altogether, I disagree. I think it is as important to manage your online image as it is to manage your real-world image. That means being proactive about complaints, encouraging positive feedback from your guests, and self-reflecting on negative reviews to look for opportunities to improve.

For those with great numbers but terrible reviews, don’t you wonder how much bigger your numbers could be if you DIDN’T have terrible reviews??
Click to expand...
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In theory, you’re entirely right. In practice, there is NOTHING you can do to “control” what people put on the Internet - and if you care enough to try, you will just drive yourself crazy. Listen to complaints from actual customers? Of course. Even look at ‘flame jobs’ from your competition on-line? Bad idea.
 
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One of the seminars at Pizza Expo presented the Yelp Us Out idea. The basic concept is you give your customers a reason to put a positive review on one of the internet sites. If they bring in a printed copy of their verifiable review they receive some sort of promotional deal.

Thank-you! This has been nibbling at my brain for a bit…you just crystalized it for me!–bout
 
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blue sky day:
One of the seminars at Pizza Expo presented the Yelp Us Out idea. The basic concept is you give your customers a reason to put a positive review on one of the internet sites. If they bring in a printed copy of their verifiable review they receive some sort of promotional deal.

Thank-you! This has been nibbling at my brain for a bit…you just crystalized it for me!–bout
Click to expand...
Like the idea but feel a little uncomfortable soliciting positive reviews.
 
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You cannot solicit positive reviews on Yelp. It’s specifically prohibited by the terms of service. In any event, you’ll be wasting your time as Yelp’s filtering system is notoriously stringent and will, without fail, be removed from Yelp within days if not hours.

Yelp also told me that I should not offer discounts or freebies to those who posted reviews even AFTER the review.

I’ve asked to be removed from Yelp and you can Google Yelp Filter to read all about the problems the filter causes and the lawsuits that have followed.

Urbanspoon is a different story.
 
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