Stories from the other side of a bad review.
Business owners on what a review did to their company, what they tried first, and what actually worked. Told in their own words; composites of real cases, anonymised.
The three reviews that nearly closed my shop
I run a small homeware shop online. Eleven days before our busiest fortnight of the year, three one-star reviews arrived in a week. None of them came from a customer. This is what they did to the business, what I got wrong, and what finally worked.
Read the story Owner story · B2B servicesOur competitor had 4.4. We had 3.8. Six months later we were ahead
For two years I assumed the firm across town simply looked after its customers better than we did. Then I actually read our own profile, review by review, and found that the gap was not about service at all.
Read the story Owner story · TradesHow one review bankrupted my first company
A kitchen fitter with a good reputation, one disputed job, and a review that said things that were not true. Nine months later the company was in liquidation. I started again. Within two months it happened again, and this time I knew what to do.
Read the story Owner story · ManufacturingThe one-star review wasn’t even about us
We make furniture in Yorkshire. The review that sat at the top of our profile for seven months complained about a flight refund. It cost us more than any review about our actual work ever has.
Read the story Owner story · Online educationWe collected 180 new reviews to bury one. People still quoted it back to us
Our strategy for a damaging review was to outnumber it. Four months and a great deal of effort later, the average had improved and the review had not moved an inch. Here is what we learned about the difference between a score and a review.
Read the storyThink a review on your profile should not be there?
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