Online Reviews: How to Handle Them

Online Reviews Can Make or Break You

Online reviews are a fact of business life. Like it or not, your customers are free to express themselves where it concerns your product or service. There’s little you can do to prevent negative reviews other than provide a level of service that discourages them. Even then, there’s always that one guy …

The other day I received an item I had ordered on Amazon. Enclosed in the package was this note. Truthfully, though I won’t be able to review the order for at least three weeks (I ordered Caladium bulbs), I had a momentary impulse to — I hate to admit this — go leave them a negative review. Because don’t tell me what to do.

I don’t want to be too hard on this business, but the random capitalization of this note is jarring as well. If you’re going to include a note in your shipment, please be sure it’s appropriately punctuated and uses proper grammar.

The real problem here is, you don’t demand (even with the word please) that your customers not leave you negative reviews, you earn positive ones.