They Like Me

When Kim Sledgister took over Little Green Baby a year ago, she made a lot of changes to the Chicago-based children’s store, including nixing the shop’s merchandise that wasn’t focused solely on eco-friendly baby gear. But her most important move was emphasizing customer service as the boutique’s cornerstone and reaching out to former customers who had been less than happy with their shopping experiences and had vented their frustrations in a very public forum—Yelp.

“The day that I went there, I had every intention of purchasing a gift, but ended up leaving because I honestly felt like I wasn’t welcome there,” wrote a Yelp user back in 2008 going by the name of Kelly G., who gave the store a 2-star review on the now-ubiquitous review website. “I was one of only two people in there aside from the store owner, and I felt completely ignored. The other person in the store seemed to be a friend of the owner’s. When I walked in, I was not acknowledged, and even when I cheerfully greeted her, I got no response. I’m throwing down an extra star for the environmentally friendly factor, but I don’t think I’ll be returning.”

Sledgister knew this kind of negative publicity was hurting her chances of snagging potential shoppers. “Online reviews are so important because customers make a decision to come and visit you after they look online to see if other people like you. No one wants to go anywhere that has bad reviews,” Sledgister explains. So the new owner began sending private messages to the disgruntled reviewers. “If you’re ever in the neighborhood, come in and introduce yourself and I’ll do whatever I can to make your experience much more pleasant,” she offered. A full two years later, Kelly G. updated her review: “Kim, the new owner, sent me the kindest message apologizing for my bad experience, despite the fact that she had nothing to do with it. She really seems to care a lot about customer service, and I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that. I don’t have any children of my own, but the next time I need to buy a baby gift, I will definitely consider shopping here.”

Sledgister is just one of many retailers and marketing experts now realizing the power of the Internet when it comes to protecting—or damaging—a shop’s reputation. “It’s kind of like the comment card is now public and available for millions to see,” says Ryan Fritzky, director of product management for Marchex Small Business Solutions, a company that helps small businesses build their local advertising presence and protect their online reputations. With more than 50 million monthly visitors on Yelp, and millions of others using Citysearch, Google and mom-centric review sites like Lilaguide, the power of the public microphone has never been stronger. In fact, 72 percent of consumers say customer ratings and reviews on retail sites are very or extremely important when it comes to selecting and purchasing a product, according to a 1,000-person study conducted by PowerReviews, a customer ratings and reviews technology provider. Anecdotal evidence also suggests the number of parents relying on reviews may be bigger than expected—and growing. “Moms heavily rely on other moms’ opinions because all of the purchases they are making are uncharted territory,” notes Karen Levine, vice president of marketing and sales for TheKnot.com, which owns Lilaguide, a local review site for new parents. “Research studies have shown that consumers are more likely to make a purchase from a store that features reviews versus one that doesn’t,” she adds. Sledgister agrees: “I think they put a lot of stock in online reviews,” she says of her customers. “Moms don’t want to spend time in a place that makes them unhappy.” Although most of her customers find her shop thanks to its ideal location—across from a prenatal yoga studio and next to a pediatric office—Sledgister thinks good reviews “just cement their decision to show up or go somewhere else.”

But in the rapidly shifting world of the
web, keeping up with your shop’s online identity is becoming increasingly complicated. While there will never be a failproof strategy for maintaining a squeaky clean web presence—as Levine notes, “There’s always one bad strawberry in the bunch”—marketing and Internet experts agree there are several steps you can take to protect yourself and cultivate an image that entices new customers to come by.

Stake Your Claim

“My number one tip is own your identity on all of the third party local and social platforms,” Fritzky says. “Make sure that you have a complete and accurate profile, with photos, on review sites like Yelp. Make sure you have a Facebook page with activity. Make sure everybody can find you no matter how they try online,” he suggests. Fionn Downhill, CEO of Elixir Interactive, a firm that specializes in search engine optimization and reputation management, adds setting up a profile on Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube to the list. The reason for this, experts say, is because these sites are most likely to pop up on the first page of Google search results when someone looks for your brand. “The most important thing nowadays is to understand that everyone uses Google,” says Duran Inci, chief operating officer for Optimum7, a New Jersey-based Internet marketing firm that specializes in online reputation management. “It’s really, really important to control the first three pages of Google for anything that is a brand name search for your brand,” he adds.

The reasons for establishing a presence on as many online venues as possible is twofold: First, “The more you control it today, when a crisis happens the faster it’s going to go away because you’ve been dominating searches for a while,” Inci says. One bad review will drown amongst a sea of interesting content, positive customer conversations and upbeat news. Second, Downhill says, “There is a risk, if you don’t claim your profile in some of these sites, that a disgruntled customer could create it. You open the door from a reputation management standpoint for an ex-employee or competitor to create the first listing for you in a negative way.”

Make Lemonade

Bad reviews aren’t necessarily the business death knell they seem to be, says Susan Mudambi, an associate professor of marketing at Temple University who has studied the influence of online reviews on sites like Amazon. “I don’t think those stray negative reviews are taken to heart by the typical consumer,” she says, noting that negative reviews can actually be helpful for establishing a shop’s credibility. “Consumers are cynical by nature and if they go to a website that has nothing but glowing reviews, they’re not going to find that very reassuring. They’re going to smell a rat,” she says, adding, “There’s no reason for a retailer to censor them out because it could be counterproductive.”

Experts agree the best method for responding to dissatisfied reviewers is following Sledgister’s example at Little Green Baby and getting in touch with customers personally. “I didn’t ask any of them to change their post. I just apologized for their experience and invited them back,” Sledgister says. Eli Gurock, co-owner of Magic Beans, a Boston-area children’s store with four locations, often uses the same strategy. Noting that “even the best companies aren’t going to get it right 100 percent of the time with the customer,” he says the onus is on owners to reach out to unhappy customers. “Many times the customer will say, ‘I understand where you’re coming from, thanks for taking the time to get back to me,’ and they will change their review.”

Inci agrees that reaching out to the consumer—sometimes with an incentive to come back—is the best method for handling bad press: “I can’t express this enough: a $20 gift card goes a long way.” Inci puts the cost of a negative review, in terms of lost sales, at “a minimum of $1,000.” In the case of an inappropriate or inaccurate review, it’s best to get in touch with the moderator of the site where the review was posted, since most sites ban these types of reviews. “The retailer can go on our site and flag the review, which basically means they feel it’s inappropriate or inaccurate, or they can send us an e-mail,” says Levine at TheKnot.com. “We’ll review the claim, and [if we find it’s inaccurate] we’ll immediately remove the review. I will tell you that most of the claims that retailers flag are, in fact, inaccurate. But the inaccurate reviews are very few and far between.”

Gather A Crowd

Surprisingly, many experts agree that having no reviews is worse than an occasional negative review. “Consumers are pretty smart, and they understand that even the greatest business in town will from time to time get a negative review,” Fritzky says. “But if consumers can sift through and see no one has said anything about the business, they will gloss over the business and go to the next one.”

To create a compelling profile on review sites, don’t be afraid to solicit your fans for a favor. “Your loyal customers are your best evangelists, so encourage those customers to write reviews,” Levine says. The best pitch, many say, is in an e-mail following an in-store or online purchase, where retailers can check in to make sure the customer is satisfied while politely requesting they post a review. “It’s less likely to be perceived as spam,” Mudambi says. “It’s a way of keeping in the mind of the consumer without it being seen as annoying clutter in the inbox. It’s a win-win for the retailer, because if they do actually respond, it can make your site seem more populated [with reviews], and if they don’t respond, it makes it seem as though at least you’re a legit retailer.”

Experts warn that offering incentives, like discounts or coupons, is an ineffective strategy for encouraging shoppers to share their thoughts. “I don’t feel like any sort of giveaway before or after is in keeping with what Yelp is supposed to be,” Sledgister says. “If you suddenly have all these reviews on the same day, that’s a little questionable—and people know it. They’re smart. I feel like honest reviews are really what people see—that it sounds like a mom wrote it or like a gift buyer wrote it. If they sniff that it might not be genuine, then the whole rest of the website is suspect.” Gurock says Magic Beans sends an e-mail within a few weeks of purchase, offering a coupon to customers who post on the shop’s own website but not for outside review sites. “With Yelp, there’s a really fine line between over incentivizing people,” he explains. “The reviews need to be genuine. You want to grease the wheels a little, but you don’t want to go too far.” Fritzky at Marchex notes that incentives often backfire, since many review sites will actually filter out a series of seemingly skewed reviews.

Check Up

Periodically browsing review sites is the best way to stay on top of your shop’s online identity, but for the busy business owner, keeping up with online critics can be an overwhelming task. To save time and effort, Inci suggests setting up a Google alert, so you will be notified anytime your company name comes up in Google. “If at anytime anyone writes a negative review, you’ll be the first person to know,” he says. Mudambi suggests limiting your attention to the review sites most pertinent to your business, noting that review sites differ in popularity from region to region.

Many retailers, however, remain skeptical that online reviews have a significant impact on their business’ bottom lines. “All of these sites prove that a word of mouth referral is still better than any other referral,” says Jennifer Pope, owner of The Red Balloon, a children’s store with two locations in Chicago. “For new customer acquisition, I think online reviews will be good eventually, but I don’t think they’re there yet.” But as the Internet continues to play an increasing role in retail, many experts say it’s best to hedge your bets. As Downhill puts it, “You will never know how many people saw a bad result and didn’t contact you.” —Audrey Goodson