Surprise! Why Customers Talk and How to Influence Their Words

"1 star terrible service won't ever return you shouldn't either. In fact try x place it's better. Here's the link." Ouch. 

"2 stars service was great could tell staff cared about paychecks but food was stale and foreign, didn't recognize the ingredients and didn't care much for the brand of Apple Juice they carry." Can't even get the apple juice right. 

"Would give 0 stars but 1 star for the purpose of hurting them. Spent $20 on their service should have dropped it out the window when I woke out and saved my gas and time." Nice. 

Hearing negative criticism is never ever fun. The great college basketball coach John Wooden said "You can't let praise or criticism get to you. It's a weakness to get caught up in one." I think for small businesses, most of the time, a positive review doesn't drown anyone in approval. There are people to pay, customers to serve, things to do. A positive review online is a nice thing, but money speaks louder. 

A negative review, on the other hand, hurts us. We stop and acknowledge it, often brush it off as unfair. How can it be fair? I mean, your service isn't bad. You know that. And look! All of the positive reviewers know that. This guy's crazy, a loony. You don't need him, in fact, you don't want him! 

But the fact is it is fair. People are entitled to their opinion, and platforms are validated by the sharing of both positive and negative reviews. If Yelp had 1 million bad reviews, and 0 good reviews, no small business would pay for advertising. If Yelp had 1 million good reviews, and 0 bad reviews, few customers would trust it. They're fair, they're part of the game, and they demand your attention and respect. 

My brother is a doctor now. He often talks about how important preventative maintenance is. "If you just did this every day, it wouldn't cost you that in the future!" type deal. He's the smart one in the family, so I trust his words on issues like this. I wonder, what does preventative maintenance mean for a local business when it comes to reviews? "If you'd just have done this each day, you wouldn't have thousands of customers finding so many poor reviews about you!" 

Let me ask this: What is the nature of most customer reviews on local business pages? Most of the time it doesn't cover the price. The price is available online in most businesses. If it isn't, the price won't be mentioned unless it's surprisingly affordable or unreasonable expensive. The nature of most customer reviews on local business pages is in regard to 3 things: 

Service

Overall Experience 

Surprises

Broad enough for you? But seriously, people get on to complain about poor service. They get on to praise the overall experience. Above all, the reason most people review, is to document a pleasant or unpleasant surprise. We come in with expectations, based on the reviews of others and the perception we form ourselves based on how your business presents itself. We form it on reputation, previous experience and personal preference. And when something happens from time we engage with your business to the moment we forget about you and engage with the start of another experience, we remember. We feel dissonance. Something is off, and off demands out attention. 

You have to understand this and decide what that dissonance will be. Understand that there will be negative dissonance. Your business will get busy, employees will call out sick, and it will cause customers to wait, to give more time than they had planned. Dishes will be prepared poorly. Meat will not be cooked as requested. People will be upset. These moments are to be handled with extreme care, like handling your ailing mother. In these moments, it's my opinion, the customer is right. He or she is right at least in her own mind, and to hold a policy that defends your business against all customer perspectives will work only for the most popular establishments. Unreasonable complaints are one thing, quickly disregarding them as nonsense is another. 

In these negative moments, when you know your customers aren't getting what they paid for, you have to give them your attention. Because if in the moments of negative dissonance you don't give your customers attention, they will give you the attention you don't want online. In the battle for 'who is right' between business and customers, the customers have a new weapon. It's free, it's easy to use, and it's powerful enough to make a dent. 

On the other end, positive dissonance can be created. Letters can be written, policies put in place, things can be done to go above and beyond what is expected of the business. If you're a bar, or a candy shop, or an auto shop - you come packaged in the customers' minds. You are expected to perform base services and do them well. If you have a niche, well, then, you're special. BMWs only, Mercedes only, whatever it may be. But as an auto shop, just the bottom line, you are expected to be able to answer simple questions and fix common issues. Anything beyond what is advertised is a surprise. It makes a lasting impression on the customer and, if that customer happens to review often, it will have a lasting impression on your business. 

The moments of dissonance are very important characters in your businesses' journey to be pleasantly perceived online. Don't forget when handling or creating these moments that your customers are stronger than ever. They are out there making and breaking future decisions for customers we have never met and may now never know. Be simply extraordinary in ordinary moments and those you've respected will shine the spotlight on you proudly. 

Let Your Customers Squeal

Small talk has always involved high praise. "Have you tried this place?" "You have to go here." "We did this." "We did that!" "He learned to make heat, a fire he calls it, I'm sure he could do it for you!" We don't need a well funded study, a new marketing book or an ad guru to prove to us that people talk about great service. There's something special about being able to answer a friend's question. To be their Google in real time, it's something we don't pass on. So when somebody mentions in passing that they're looking to renovate the kitchen (you just renovated your kitchen!) or they need a good place for their anniversary dinner (your other friend just had a great birthday dinner at that Italian place!), we squeal.

"This guy did an incredible job in my kitchen! I'll send you his number at least give him a call!" 

"I heard that Italian place was unbelievable, Italianos. Give it a search online." 

Small talk is still the same in nature, we still love to squeal, but it's not so small anymore. Now comments go online, public displays of loyalty are found on your profiles, the great products and services are being rewarded for being great. 

Not all of us squeal online. Some wait for a friend to mention a need in passing. But many of us do squeal online. Many of us are Yelp Elite members, others check-in on Facebook for their Friends to see. It could be to help the business raise awareness, or to help friends find something cool, whatever it is - it ends in a squeal. 

How can you make it easier for your customers to squeal online? 

Often someone will search your business for hours (are they open?) or a menu (do they have steak?), prices too, and much more. Each time they search for that one answer, they find many more. They see the whole show, not just the scene. They'll notice when you have many Google Reviews or just a few. They'll notice when a Facebook page pops up and (if you're not active) they won't. The customers that squeal, the ones that just enjoy reviewing, for any reason, you want to give them the chance to do so. 

Get started on Google Reviews and Facebook Reviews by asking some of your most loyal patrons to give you a shoutout. Don't say 'follow us' and leave it at that, they want to help! Say 'show us some love' and they will! 

Social Media Is Important: A Local Business Approach

Spending on marketing can be tough to justify. Many times we spend on marketing because "it's worked in the past." New options, like Facebook, Twitter, Google Search, even texting, are half-respected, half-questioned. That's understandable. In a small business there are so so many things to worry about. We were never compleeetely sure those newspaper and radio ads brought in more than they cost, but at least we knew them.

My own Dad operates a small business. He's always been a little ahead of his competition in the technology realm, so I wasn't surprised to hear he was spending on SEO and some other web programs for the business a few years ago. Still, in conversations, I could tell he was skeptical about the value of a Facebook Ad, a follower, a like or a comment.

"How is it helping me? What do I do to improve? I just don't understand it."

Again, this is completely understandable. There's been so much to think about the past few years. It's hard, and taking on more outside opinions is always a challenge. But times really are changing. I'd like to take a quote from the recent 007 movie Skyrim, the scene with Judi Dench on trial making an argument for 00 agents:

Today I've repeatedly heard how irrelevant my department has become. Why do we have agents, the 00 section, isn't it all rather quaint?Well I suppose I see a different world than you do. And the truth is that what I see frightens me. I'm frightened because our enemies are no longer known to us, they do not exist on a map, they're not nations, they're individuals, and look around you, who do you fear? Can you see a face, a uniform, a flag? No. Our world is not more transparent now, it's more opaque. It's in the shadows. That's where we must do battle. So before you declare us irrelevant ask yourselves: How safe do you feel?

Thank you, M. Our customers aren't enemies like Javier Bardem, but they are in the shadows, making decisions away from our influence.  Before our friendly service has a chance to influence them they're knee deep in customer reviews on Google, Yelp, FourSquare, UrbanSpoon, Facebook, and more. Google calls this moment of search the Zero Moment of Truth. All of that copy we wrote, all those clever phrases, that's all on one search result in a local Google search that brings up our business. The rest of the results? 2-200? Those words were written by experienced customers, just like the one searching at home. They're knowledgable, they're trusted, and they're still talking. 

Someone searching for something we can offer can't be expected to give us the benefit of the doubt if we have no reviews, or even worse, a few very poor reviews and nothing positive. When competitors look better on paper, they're perceived better in the search.

The good knows is there is something you can do. You can control what people find when they search. Sure, you will have unhappy customers, and they may leave unfavorable reviews, but by claiming your business on the networks and making social a real part of your operations you'll get new reviews, better receptions, and more customers.

Claim your business on the networks. Fill out the information. Add photos of your products, your services, whatever it is your customers enjoy. The beautiful thing about a local business is how well they understand the area. Somehow, your business fits into that area. It could be in a big way or a small way, but it has its place. Use social to stake claim to your service to the area, let your customers and friends market for you, and have fun with it! 

Google+ and Customer Reviews

Google+ is important for a local business for 2 reasons:

1. It has hundreds of millions of users (estimates vary. We'll settle on 'huge') 
2. It impacts your search engine optimization 

The network itself is very easy to setup and maintain. Business information, news, whatever it is you choose to share. Where you'll want to take advantage of Google+ is in Customer Reviews. Think about how someone finds your business online. 

• Google Search ("Pizza in Delaware") 

We judge by star count and review count. In all likelihood, someone searching for a local service will weed out the weak in 2 clicks: 

• Choose one that looks good (Seasons?) 

• Read first reviews available ("2.8? hmm..")

Encourage your customers to leave feedback on a specific day, or for a reason - have a call to action! "Google Reviewer wins..." "Google Reviewer gets loyalty card with 3 stamps filled out.." 

Next Click

Our recommended starter guide on Search Engine Optimization : SEOMoz "The Beginners Guide to SEO"