Review Your Reviews: The Impact Of Bad Reviews For Local Business

Hello!  We usually leave our writing for 216 Marketing up to our awesome writers, but this one is mine. Self professed, I am not a great writer, but I usually take themes that are dear to me and try to articulate.  Shout out to my Alma mater, The University of Colorado and the 4 writing classes I took a while back.

Below are some instances of how bad reviews can impact the perception of a business, nationally and locally.  Most notably, local businesses, who cannot stave off the impact of one bad review.  I’ve seen so many local businesses here in Cleveland sadly go out of business.  And some of the contributing factors of businesses closing up shop.

Even if you skim through and pick out the data and references below for a minute, I think it might help.  The examples are from personal experiences.  Thank you for reading.

Key Takeaways:

1. Reviews for national companies are easier to deal with as the company.
2. Reviews for local companies are extremely hard to remove and can have a huge effect on the business as a whole.
3. What can we do?

Review Examples

National Review Example:

I used water filters exclusively in my house.  There is one in particular that is made by Culligan (we are not getting paid to push their product) that I have used for years.  I just wanted to use a personal experience to show how easy it is to alleviate posting a bad review, for a simple fix, in fact gave me the idea of writing this.

I got a bad filter a few weeks ago.  It happens.  Instead of slamming them for writing a bad review, I reached out via Facebook Messenger and let them know the situation.  A day later a Social Media Manager (like they don’t have enough to do) said we will be sending out a replacement next week.

Filter came, water tasted as good as it always does.  Now, national companies can handle bad reviews much easier than local business, just in terms of volume and staff. Hats off to the overworked Social Media Manager who made it happen, bad review averted.

Did you know?

• 91% of 18–34‑year‑olds trust reviews as much as personal recommendations [source]
•  A jaw‑dropping 90% of consumers read online reviews before visiting any business, and 86% hesitate to purchase after encountering negative reviews [source]

First, here are some mind blowing facts about how bad, negative reviews can unfairly affect local businesses and how difficult it is to remove them.  Yes, 216 Marketing offers this service, but we don’t care, we are slamming Google anyways. One might hope that Google filters toxic reviews, and they do, sometimes, but not nearly enough:

• Research on 50,000 deleted Google reviews found 77% stayed live for more than 10 days before removal, and only 4.3% were swiftly pulled within a day. [source]
• Google clearly states they only remove content that violates policy, not reviews simply because the business objects
• That means most unfair or spiteful reviews stay, harming small businesses well before (or even if) Google takes them down.

So basically, Google is removing positive 5 star reviews and letting negative, spiteful reviews remain, even if the consumer did not do business with the company, works for a competitor or anything else.  If anyone has tried to get a negative review removed from an obvious negative violation.

As are additional stats about the local impact on business in Ohio and the impact and bandwidth needed to remove negative reviews in Ohio, Cleveland, Northeast Ohio and beyond to take into consideration:

• Ohio is home to nearly 1 million small businesses—making up 99.6% of all businesses and employing 44% of the workforce. [source]
• Cleveland (pop. ~372,600) anchors that local economy, with countless brick‑and‑mortar and service microbusinesses that rely on trusted reputations.
• In Cuyahoga County, more than 600 businesses reported challenges during the pandemic, including vulnerability to bad public perception. [source]
• It takes about 12 positive reviews to offset a single negative one. [source]
• Some sources say it could be as many as 40 positive reviews to counterbalance one bad rating.
• And yes, that one-star ding can literally stalk a business: a bad Google review carries the weight of eight positive reviews in swaying potential customers

Bottom line: if you’re nitpicking or posting a review without even becoming a customer, you could be pulling that chair out from under someone’s livelihood. National companies have the bandwidth of dealing with such occurrences, small businesses do NOT.

Local Review Example:

As Clevelanders, we support local businesses as much as I can.  Which leads me to another personal experience with a company I do work with, Northeast Ohio Fence & Deck (FYI the owner does not know I am writing this).

I am going to highlight 2 instances on why it is important to Review Your Reviews and change them when you can, in this case of NEO Fence particularly.

• This whole year there has been a person that keeps posting a negative review, deletes it, then reposts it, which does affect their rating with Google. NEO Fence & Deck installed a product.  The homeowner did not take directions from the NEO Fence & Deck crew, thus leaving him with a sub-par product.  It even stated in the signed contract as such, you need to do this, or this will happen.  It was installed 3 years ago! Look at the huge amount of positive reviews in 3 months.  Google will have nothing to do with the review (see above).  [source]
• Here is another one. One bad review stated that we didn’t install railings, when it clearly states on the website they only install railings on decks we install. They never were a customer. [source]

That is just the tip of the iceberg, we have seen the exact same thing with other other clients.  So what can we do as a consumer?

I am starting with myself, I will be reviewing bad local reviews in which I did not give them a chance to rectify with another visit, an email or a phone call.  Now I am not saying some businesses don’t deserve a bad review, but be fair. I am guilty as charged in doing this.  Our apologies to the local community.

What can we do?

Next time you’re fuming over a minor quibble, maybe your sandwich was a degree too warm or the parking lot was a hair crowded, ask yourself:

• Did I actually pay for the service?
• Did I double-check with the business before I cool off?
• Am I prepared for how my one opinion can sway dozens, even hundreds of others, even if it is not justified?

Below are some additional stats and resources to consider when you are considering leaving a bad review:

• 1 negative review = 12–40 positive reviews to rebound rank
• 30 customers lost per negative review
• 91% of 18–34 year‑olds trust online reviews like personal references
• 86% of consumers hesitate to use a business with negative reviews
• Ohio has ~1 million small businesses (99.6% of all businesses)
• 77% of deleted Google reviews stay up for >10 days before removal
• Google only removes truly policy‑breaking reviews, removes WAY more positive reviews than negative

While it is an unfair process especially for local businesses, we can do something to help. And it is definitely unfair to even post a review that you were at fault, or even worse, didn’t even do or pay for a service or product.

Linda sums it up nicely, “Not every one-star review can be removed—but your response can still be golden.” – Linda Donnelly

At the end of the day, did it make your life better? The only advice I can offer from my rambling post, Review Your Reviews.