Businesses Chafe at Consumer Reviews

Reviews are hell.

Writers, actors, directors and restaurant owners hate them. And so do business owners.

It’s never easy observing or taking part in a discussion about your business, especially when customers are taking potshots at you.

Calley Nye writes on TechCrunch about businesses fighting back against the review site Yelp by creating “sucks”-type sites about the site that features local reviews.

She says: “The good news for Yelp is that when businesses are afraid of you, it’s only because they realize how much power you really have. See, for example, Paypal and Ebay, two of the most reviled and profitable businesses on the Internet.”

Companies have a legitimate concern if someone is writing something misleading or incorrect about their products and services.

The conflict of interest policy protecting Wikipedia entries from undue editing by the subject of an entry leaves business people feeling exposed to rumors and errors dressed up as fact.

Customer reviews are a big part of sites like Amazon.com. People don’t just want to hear what journalists think about a book or other item. They want to know what regular folks have to say.

Of course, sometimes the “reviews” are thinly-disguised mischief at the expense of the author.

A company shouldn’t be afraid to clarify confusing information, or correct errors. But when someone just doesn’t like you or your product line, attacking the critics (whether professionals, semi-pros or amateurs) usually backfires.

Before engaging in a pissing match with a reviewer, ask yourself how petty you want to look.

Then go find something useful to do, like fixing the typos and broken links on your website!