5 Types of Online Reviewers and What They Care About

[Garrett Sussman]

5 Types of Online Reviewers and What They Care About

?People hate us on Yelp.?

Botto bistro, an Italian pizza and pasta restaurant in San Francisco wants one star reviews. In fact, they?re doing everything they can to get terrible reviews, offering customers 25% off to write scathing one star reviews on Yelp.

They launched a ?Hate Us on Yelp? to get the word out.

Then they took their petty bribery even further.

?At the end of the month we will share the most funny and sarcastic review with the 10,000 followers in our newsletter and we will reward the winner with a free ticket for one of our cooking classes!?

Their customers ate it up, posting hilarious one star, tongue-in-cheek reviews.

Co-owner, Davide Cerretini initially used this strategy as a way to fight back against Yelp.

He got tired of Yelp?s sales reps.

The constant cold calls, pitches week after week asking, no, demanding that he purchase ads on the site. He felt Yelp relied on blackmail, shaking down businesses to increase their revenue. But customers loved his ?Hate Us on Yelp? campaign, going out of their way to give Botto Bistro the one star reviews they wanted.

These ?anti-Yelp? campaigns can be extremely effective, but they can also backfire horribly. Skirting a 3rd party?s TOS comes with consequences (blacklists, blowback, negative reviews, etc.). Yelp isn?t happy Botto gamed their system which means, at some point, there?s a price to pay.

Most of the time unhappy reviewers aren?t as ?kind?

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The vast majority of reviews are focused around a negative event. Failure, disappointment, anger ? typically these are the emotions that drive customers to leave a spontaneous review. Especially when they feel they haven?t been heard.

And then there?s concurrence.

Concurrence refers to the factual, well-thought-out reviews that cite sources and share references. These reviews are free from the usual toxicity that?s present in a negative rant.

Reviews send important signals.

These signals tell you which reviewers you should respond to, when you should respond and how. This is the part where things get dicey.

Why?

Because most businesses do their best to ignore the signals.

Reviewers aren?t created equal

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Most of the time, customers are reasonable, thoughtful people. They realize businesses are run by people and they do their best to treat others the way they like to be treated. They?re honest, fair and kind in their reviews.
Which basically means they behave.

Other customers aren?t as considerate. They can be rude, demanding and difficult to please. These customers are quick to demand refunds, concessions and freebies when they don?t get their way. Some of these customers are downright hostile, spewing vicious, nasty and hateful comments in their reviews.

Here?s the common mistake.

Many businesses give (or try to give) each and every customer the same amount of attention. They go out of their way to do what?s right for their customer. If they?re dealing with a toxic reviewer, they often get sucked into a fight, which is obviously a big no-no.

Then, to make matters worse, they train customers to misbehave. Their fear of bad publicity and negative reviews means they?re more likely to become enablers. A customer shows up, throws a tantrum and misbehaves, expecting the business to provide some kind of reimbursement for their ?trouble.? Businesses with a fear of bad publicity jump at the chance to do so, training other customers and repeating the dysfunctional cycle.

Here?s the secret most miss.

Customers should turn your attention.

Their attitude, behavior and approach sends important signals about how they?ll behave with you once you engage them. But you need to know who you?re dealing with first before you focus on what you?re dealing with.

So what are the types?

Reviewer #5: Trolls

Reviewer #4: Ragers

Reviewer #3: The Misguided

Reviewer #2: The Unhappy

Reviewer #1: The Agreeable

Read Andrew's full post here to learn more about his Reviewer types and how to handle them.

 

[Linda Buquet]

Thanks for sharing this Garrett.

I have not had time to read yet, but am wondering if he named the reviewer types, like:
Grumpy, Bashful, Dopey, Happy

So what do you guys think of the types? Make sense? Any others to mention?

 

[Garrett Sussman]

Thanks Linda! Love the 7 dwarfs reference!