#should i edit my localization files and get it as a surprising little treat on my future playthroughs

[chonker-chan]

there should be a 'Pasqal big naturals' mod but it wouldnt change his portrait or anything, just the text in that dialogue where he shows you his holy stigmata

#rogue trader #shitpost #should i do it #should i edit my localization files and get it as a surprising little treat on my future playthroughs #since id probably already forgor abt it by then

[donald4spiderman]

The City

masterlist

-

Summary: Reader is thinking about moving to California. Spencer’s determined to get her to stay.

Pairing: Spencer Reid x BAU!Fem!Reader

Warnings: none

Category: Fluff (angst if you squint)

**Inspired by Ben’s poetic confession in Parks and Recreations, S3E14**

Here’s a draft i forgot to post

-

**not edited yet**

Spencer’s POV

As a profiler, I’ve mastered the observation and analysis of behavior— we all have.

Picking the minds of serial killers is second nature— so why is it so hard for me to figure out why (Y/N) is behaving so strangely?

In the recent months, her witty and charming energy has dwindled into a lethargic imitation. Whether she’d admit it or not— (Y/N) can be extremely enthusiastic about certain things— especially our job.

So, when I watch her drag her feet, inch by inch, into the BAU each morning, It’s hard to contain my concern.

I know Morgan has noticed, and I’m sure everyone else has too. They’re probably just too scared to say anything. (Y/N) doesn’t enjoy people prying into her private life, so we all stay a comfortable distance away.

I watch her a lot... more than I’d like to admit. It’s hard to be unaware of her nervous behaviors— the nail biting, hair twisting, skin picking— I practically have enough data to make a correlation graph. I can tell when she’s upset, and it’s happening more than usual.

(Y/N) has always been kind to me. Even when I was at the peak of my stammering, slicked-back hair phase, she treated me with more respect than I deserved. I can only imagine how awkward I must’ve been (or, still am), and I thank her for not belittling me.

I guess I’m validating the Benjamin Franklin Effect when I say this— but I feel like I owe it to her to ask what’s wrong. Over the years I’ve built up (arguably) the closest friendship with her, so it only makes sense for me to bite the bullet for the team.

It’s partially due to the fact that I’ve developed a slight (if not major) crush over time, but who wouldn’t? A gorgeous, intelligent, quick-witted women is kryptonite for any person. Our conversations are always stimulating, she gives the best advice, and she’s always there to comfort a team member.

So, it pains me to see her struggle through a paperwork day. I wish she would reach out to anyone for help, but it’s not in her nature.

“H-Hi.” I smile as I approach her desk. Her tired eyes look up at me, and she smiles back.

“Hey, Reid. What’s up?

I rub the back of my neck nervously. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Morgan and Emily watching me struggle to form a sentence. They giggle as they watch.

“I-I was... um. D-do you want to get coffee with m-me? Not now! I mean— after work!” Morgan stumbles out of the bullpen, barely containing his laugh. I must sound pathetic.

(Y/N) nods hesitantly, “S-sure. I don’t know why you want to get coffee with me, but I’m free.”

“Really?” My surprise shocks her. “T-that’s gr-great! I can drive you!”

She chuckled, “I think I’d rather drive us. I’m pretty sure you can’t drive a mile without hitting a curb.”

I nod fervently. “Sounds good.”

As I make my way back to my desk, I send a glare in Emily’s direction as she continues to smirk at me.

-

(Y/N) grabs an empty table in the café, and we sit down, huddling close to our warm drinks. She orders a cinnamon latte, I order a black coffee with an unhealthy amount of sugar.

I place the drinks down. “Did you know that cinnamon is shown to reduce systolic blood pressure. It’s commonly used in South Asia and works by dilating blood vessel.”

She nods, “Surprisingly, I did know that. You’re gonna have to teach me something else, Doc.” I laugh in response, enjoying the relaxation that radiates off of her.

“I feel like we don’t get to, um, t-talk as much as I would like to.” My words get caught in my throat and she gives me a lopsided smile.

“Well, we don’t exactly have the most leisurely job.” She states, sipping her drink.

I bite my lip, she looks down. I convince myself that my mind is playing tricks on me, because there’s no way (Y/N) would glance down to watch me pull my bottom lip between my teeth.

“I know... but you used to talk more.”

“I’ve been busy lately. Tired too.” She mumbles.

I mean forward slightly, my voice is a hushed whisper. “A-are you... okay?” I’m anticipating an defensive response, but all she does is sigh.

“I’m alright. I just... I’m getting tired of being here— in D.C.”

My eyes widen and my brows knit together. “W-What! Why?”

(Y/N) shrugs, “I don’t know. I just expected to feel... really, really attached to D.C when I first moved here. I love my job, and I love you guys— but nothing’s keeping me here.”

My face drops. My disappointment is adamant because she scrambles to reassure me.

“It’s not that I don’t absolutely love working with you guys. You’re my best friend, Spencer. But... I came to D.C to... I don’t know... settle down.” It comes out as more of a question rather a statement. “It’s sounds weird, right? Me, settling down?” She laughs. “I-I don’t mean a husband and a family necessarily. I moved here because I wanted to belong somewhere.”

“You don’t feel like you belong?”

“I feel... I feel like everything I have right now is temporary. It’s not the feeling I expected to have. I just want to have something permanent in my life for once.”

I remain silent, lacking the proper response.

“Please don’t tell anyone!” She pleaded.

I smile solemnly, “I won’t. I promise.”

In that moment, I make another promise. Not just to (Y/N), but to myself. I’m going to show her how many things she has here for her in D.C.

I’m going to prove how much I believe she belongs.

-

I started by bringing her coffee each morning— a cinnamon latte from the same café we went to.

The first time she seemed pleasantly surprised. I sped through the doors of the bullpen, my coat and slacks absolutely soaked due to the rainy D.C weather. She giggled at the sight of my hair plastered to my forehead. I was certain that I looked like a wet dog.

“Morning!” I greeted, placing down both cups of coffee on her desk so I could fix my hair. “I-uh-I got you coffee. A cinnamon latte, of course.”

(Y/N) smiles brightly, “You’re the best. Thanks, Reid. I definitely needed this.”

Hotch and Rossi are watching me curiously, pretending not to look up from their files. At this moment, I could care less.

“It’s n-nothing.” Suddenly I’m blushing furiously under the weight of her stare.

“Thanks, again.” She clears her throat, “Y-you’re a really good friend.”

She smiles. And I smile.

-

In the next three weeks, (Y/N) and I grow closer at a rate faster then ever. I try to do something small for her everyday. Finishing up a file for her; Bringing her coffee or water; Sitting next to her on the jet. It appears to be working— she looks much more relaxed and happy. Her sarcastic humor is back and she engages more with the team.

We’ve decided to hang out after today. I find myself enjoying every minute with her, even if all we do is talk, eat, and walk around aimlessly. I’m sure she’s tired of me, but my infatuation with her only grows.

Tonight, we’re sitting at the park, watching people on their late night jogs, dog walkers, babysitters. We finished eating Indian food at a local restaurant. Turns out we’re both regulars at the same place, it’s a shame we haven’t run into each other.

She’s sitting criss-cross on the bench, her elbow rested on top of her knee. “You know,” She starts, “D.C is pretty great. I don’t think I’ve felt this... content in a while.”

I smile, even if it’s too dark for her to see. “Th-thanks. D.C is a great place, despite averaging 39 inches of rain annually.”

She means her head back against the bench. “I still don’t know. I feel like I’m just waiting for something. I don’t even know what that something is... a sign maybe?”

“A sign?” I laugh.

“Y-yeah... a sign. I’d usually make a pros and cons list and research the differences between the two places but... this decision feels too personal to look at it as just statistics.”

In this very moment, I decide to toss all my concerns, questions, what if’s, into the wind. This is my final move; my last resort; my Hail Mary.

My hands are trembling, and it takes me seconds to force the words out of my throat.

“W-well, besides the higher cost of living and considerably gloomy weather, D.C can be a p-pretty great place to reside. It has a busy political culture and is one of the most diverse states in the country.” I pause for a little longer than necessary.

“But, besides statistics and facts, if w-we look past objectivity, to me: D.C is where my friends are, and my friends are my family. Um... I like The City because it’s home to so many great people. A-and I know it’s hard to see the good in things considering how much violence we see on a daily basis, but certain people make me believe that things aren’t all that bad.”

(Y/N)‘a listening attentively, making me even more nervous than I thought possible. “D.C— The City— is beautiful. It’s charming. It’s a warm, cinnamon latte on a rainy day, o-or a late night walk in the park. To me, it’s home.” I catch her smirking a little bit, and I can only hope that she understands what I’m trying to say.

“Plus, The City is really good at her job. The City’s an excellent profiler. But, the city’s an even better friend, and an even better person. It doesn’t hurt that The City has great hair, and gorgeous eyes, and a perfect smile. And, she does this cute thing where she twists the ends of her hair, even if I keep telling her to stop. The City’s beautiful and definitely out of my league. She probably wants nothing to with me now, but I don’t care. I really like The City. And, even if she doesn’t like me back, she should stay, because there are so many people that like and love The City. ‘Cause who wouldn’t.”

(Y/N) is full on grinning right now, and it’s hard to stay patient when so much is on the line.

“Wow.” She giggles. “You really like The City.”

I chuckled awkwardly, “Y-yeah. I really do.”

“I mean, if you think The City’s so great, maybe I should stay. Plus, I’m sure The City likes you too.”

I feign confusion, “Really? I don’t know... The City can be kind of closed off sometimes.”

“Trust me— The City definitely likes you back. And I don’t think The City appreciates you saying that about her”

“Oh really?” I gasp. “Let’s ask her.”

I turn my head around, then proceed to look back at (Y/N) in the most dramatic fashion.

“Hey.” I laugh.

“Oh, Hi Dr. Reid!” She feigns surprise to match my frivolousness.

“I don’t know if you’ve heard, b-but I really like you. And, a little birdy told me that you like me back.”

She laughs heartily, “Well, that little birdy is a pretty reliable source.”

Soon, her head is resting on my shoulder. My body’s stiff and the air is caught in my lungs, but I feel more content than I have in years. Somehow the weather is warmer, and the sun is brighter, and things just seem... better.

“This is a great city.” She mumbles, peering up at me in the most adorable fashion.

“Yeah,” I smile, “It really is.”

-

“Pawnee’s a really special town, I love living there. And, I look forward to the moments in my day where I get to hang out with the town, and talk to the town about stuff. The town has really nice blonde hair too. And, it’s read a shocking number of political biographies for a town, which I like.” - Ben Wyatt

#criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #dr reid #spencer reid #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid smut #sub!spencer #bittersweet #criminal minds x reader #fluff #spencer x y/n #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x reader

[moon-light-jukebox]

Risk - [Hotch x Reader]

Summary: Things on a case go badly because reader took a risk. The entire team is mad at her...but no one more so than her unit chief.

Pairing: Hotch x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 3.4k

Content Warnings: Rough sex, mild brat taming, pussy slapping, choking, unprotected sex, orgasm denial, oral sex (male receiving), fingering, Dom!Hotch.

Rating: Explicit

Request prompt: Could you please write a smut (hotch x fem!reader) where reader doesn’t listen to hotch’s orders in a case and she almost gets killed and on the jet on the way home there’s a big ass argument including everyone and it's whole BAU against reader and when they land back home reader is super mad and hotch tells her hes going to take her home and then they have angry sex

A/n: I didn't edit this as thoroughly as I usually do. All mistakes are mine. Hopefully the smut makes up for it. 😌 And I hope the anon that requested this likes it!

-- Risk --

The paramedics had ignored me the multiple times I insisted that I was fine. Luckily, they seemed to agree that I didn’t need to go to the hospital. It was still early enough in the day that the team might be able to fly back home if the local police didn’t need our help wrapping everything up.

I wasn't looking forward to the ass-chewing I knew I was about to get, but I couldn't regret my actions. I'd do it all again, even if that meant feeling a bullet burn across my upper arm.

Once I was released, I made my way over to the SUVs, seeing only Prentiss and JJ standing by them.

“Where is everybody?” I asked once I was close enough.

Both women stiffened at the sound of my voice. Prentiss turned away like I hadn’t spoken. JJ shifted her weight from foot to foot awkwardly.

“They’re wrapping things up with the local police,” the blonde woman answered. “Do you not have to go to the hospital?”

“Just a graze.”

Her eyebrows rose slightly, her lips pressing into a tight line.

“I’ll get the others; maybe we can get the fuck out of here,” Prentiss muttered, walking away without so much as looking at me.

I probably deserved that.

--

The entire ride to the airstrip was filled with tense silence. Even Rossi wasn’t looking at me. Despite the awkwardness, I still couldn’t bring myself to regret my decision. A 12-year-old girl was going home safe tonight because of me; that was all that mattered.

Everyone else could just scratch their mad spot, as my grandma would say.

I was the last one to board the jet, already dreading the 2-hour flight home from Atlanta. JJ and Reid were on the couch, Hotch, Rossi, Morgan, and Prentiss were in the 4 chairs around the small table.

All that suited me just fine, as I really just wanted to go home. I took my seat at the back of the plane, near the section that led to the bathroom. I was prepared to put on my headphones and keep my eyes closed for the entire flight home.

The plane had been in the air for about 20 minutes when one of them finally snapped. I wasn’t surprised that it was Morgan.

“What the fuck were you thinking, y/l/n?” He demanded, his voice low and harsh.

I didn’t bother turning my gaze away from the window. “I was thinking I needed to save Annabelle Richards, who is home safe now. Job done.”

Prentiss scoffed then muttered something under her breath.

“Kiddo,” Rossi began gently. “Yeah, you did the job. But you almost died. You ran in there like a hot head and almost got yourself killed.”

I couldn’t not look at Rossi. He sounded genuinely upset, and the older man had always been unfailingly kind to me in the months since I’d joined the team.

"I know," I conceded, meeting his gaze head-on. "But I couldn't see another way."

“So, you were just going to give up your life? We had no reason to believe they’d release her.” Morgan fumed, back in the game.

“It was our best shot.”

“No, it fucking wasn’t! If you hadn’t been so stupid you would have seen that!”

"Oh, very mature, Morgan. I didn't know we'd resorted to name-calling."

“He’s right,” JJ said, her eyes shifting from Morgan to me. “You were stupid and reckless. You almost died. If Hotch hadn’t taken that shot in time, you would have.”

I licked my lips, my eyes closing briefly. “I understand why you’re upset-“

“No.”

All the air in the room seemed to still at that one word. The voice we had all been waiting for had finally tagged into the match, The Entire BAU vs. Y/n Y/l/n.

I wasn’t prepared for Hotch to fucking stand up and start walking towards the back of the plane, his eyes boring into me. “No, you don’t understand why we’re upset.” His hand gripped the top of the seat in front of me, his knuckles were white with the force of his hold.

“Hotch-“

“Shut UP!” He pointed his index finger at me. “You don’t get to talk. You behaved like a spoiled child. I don’t know how they do things in Richmond, but you’re in fucking Quantico now. You’re a member of my team, and I cannot have rogue agents on my team.”

“What the fuck did you want me to do, Hotch?”

His eyes hardened even more. “I expect all of my agents to stick to the fucking hostage protocol!’

I was on my feet before I even realized I was moving. “She was 12-years-old, and she was screaming!’

“Because she was scared, y/n! She was a child trapped in a building with a mad man and she was scared! We had the profile! We all knew he wasn’t going to hurt her! She was his endgame!”

My fists were balled up at my side. “I couldn’t risk that.”

“Then maybe I can’t risk having you on this team. Sit down, I’ll deal with you when we land.” I opened my mouth to speak, but he snapped again. “That’s a fucking order!”

As you would expect, the remaining hour of the flight home was completely calm and filled with no tension whatsoever.

Not.

Spencer and I were the last ones to get off the plane; he was the only one who hadn’t spoken to me. “Are you mad at me too?”

He licked his lips, considering his words. “I’m not mad like the rest of them. I understand why you felt like you had to do it. I’ve broken protocol like that too. But I am mad because you’re my friend. And because of how you acted, I almost lost my friend.”

Out of all the words hurled at me tonight, Spencer’s actually cut me.

“Reid,” I mumbled out.

“Give them time,” he said, shrugging his bag up on his shoulder before walking away.

Time was not given to me, however. I was standing in front of the elevators when someone called my name from the bullpen.

I turned, giving my unit chief a blank stare. “Yeah?”

“Are you leaving?”

I blinked, then pointed to the elevator.

He wasn’t amused. “Are you going to take the train home?”

“That’s the plan,” I informed him, turning back to face the elevator, crossing my arms over my chest.

“I’m taking you home.”

My head jerked back. “No, you’re not.”

He took a step towards me, his face was set in a scowl that sent criminal running, and he towered over me. “You disobeyed a direct order twice today; I’m still debating on whether or not to put this bullshit in your file and you were shot.”

I mean…he’s not wrong.

“You’re not going to ride a train for 45 minutes when I can get you home in 20.”

I sighed, too tired to fight. “Whatever you say, Sir.”

--

The longer I sat in the front seat of Hotch’s car, the madder I got. How dare he yell at me in front of the entire time for doing my job? Where the fuck did he get off intimidating me into getting into a car with him? Threatening to put shit in my file when all I did was save a little girl’s life.

“If you have something to say, say it.”

I shouldn’t be surprised that he picked up on my mood shifting. “I thought members of the team didn’t profile each other.”

“You’re not acting like a member of this team, so why should I treat you like one?”

I had to bite down on my tongue to hold the string of curses inside my mouth. This smug mother fucker had absolutely no right to talk to me like that.

What had started out as cold anger now roared to life in my veins; I could feel my hands starting to shake.

Thankfully, he was true to his word and got me home in 20 minutes. The car hadn’t even come to a complete stop before I was undoing my seat belt and grabbing my bag. I shoved the door open, turning around to face him while he still sat in the car, his eyes fixed on me.

“Thanks for the ride, Boss,” I spat out. “Since I’m clearly not compatible with your team, you’ll have my transfer request on your desk first thing in the morning.”

He opened his mouth to say something; probably something that would have made me even more mad. But I cut him off, I couldn’t stop myself. I was fucking seething.

"Fuck you, and your perfect team," I said, slamming the door behind me.

I didn’t want to hear another word from that man, so I darted into my building, taking the three flights of stairs rather than waiting for the elevator. I was still so fucking mad. And what’s more, I actually think I was a little hurt.

I expected the bullet wound to hurt, but I never expected the entire team’s reaction to hurt worse.

Reaching my door, I fished my keys out of my bag, more than ready to get this day over with.

I was so fucking distracted I didn’t realize anyone was behind me until my door was open. A large hand grabbed me by my hair and shoved me inside. I tried to struggle, but his other hand clapped over my mouth while he kicked the door shut behind him.

My pure fucking terror only lasted for a few moments. The man turned me, slamming my back against my front door.

“Hotch! What the fuck! You scared the shit out of me!”

His eyes were the darkest I’d ever seen them; my normally composed supervisor was shaking with fury.

“Good, then you know how it fucking felt to watch you run into that house today,” he sneered, his body pressing me against my door.

Adrenaline was pumping through my blood, my breath coming in fast pants. Hotch’s body was flush against mine, his eyes wild and his breathing just as fast.

“Is that why you’re here, Aaron?” I taunted.

His eyes flashed at the sound of his first name leaving my mouth. Those large hands that were on me a moment ago had been resting on the door, but he brought his left hand down so quickly. He placed it on my throat, his thumb resting against my jaw.

“You know why I’m here.”

“I know why you’re pretending to be here. Your excuse for being here is that I fucked up today. But that’s not why you’re here.” I lined forward, dropping my voice into a mock whisper. “I can feel why you’re really here, Aaron.”

And I could. I didn’t have to be a profiler to see how blown his pupils were, to see how his eyes kept straying down to my lips. I especially didn’t need to be a profiler to feel what was pressed against my body.

His thumb dropped down to the other side of my throat before it squeezed, cutting off just a bit of my blood flow. His right hand came down from the door to squeeze in between our bodies, going right for the button of my pants. I was stunned when I felt it pop open and the zipper lower right before his fingers ghosted over the skin right above the top of my panties.

“What am I going to find when I slip my hand into your panties, y/n?” His breath skimmed over my face; his lips so close to mine. “Do you expect me to believe your little cunt isn’t positively soaked for me?”

“It’s not,” I bit out, stubborn to the end.

Aaron just smirked at me, his fingers moving inside of my panties, down, down, down, until I felt one blunt finger run across my slit, not even spreading me open.

His nose brushed against mine. “You feel pretty wet to me, princess.”

I felt my core throb at his words, but I couldn’t let him win. “I’m not your fucking princess.”

“No,” he mused. “You’re nothing but a little fucking brat.” He removed his hand from my panties, bringing it around to hook under the back of my thigh. “And since you want to act like a brat, I’m going to treat you like a brat.”

That was all the warning I got before his lips crashed against mine, his hand leaving my throat to grab my other thigh. He lifted my feet off the floor, forcing my legs to wrap around his waist.

Aaron Hotchner’s kiss was as intense as every other part of him. He ate at my mouth, biting my bottom lip before running his tongue over it. He ground his hardness against my pussy, smirking against my mouth when I moaned.

“Such a needy fucking girl,” was what he said before he lifted me totally in his arm, stepping away from the door. He walked through the living room.

“First door the left,” I mumbled.

He chuckled while he pushed my bedroom door open. “So, you’re enough of a brat to fight me, but enough of a slut to direct me to your room?”

“Fuck you,” I bit out.

Aaron tossed me on the bed, his hands gripping the waist of both my pants and panties before he yanked them down my legs. He was on top of me a moment later, his hands tearing at my shirt, ripping the buttons off.

“You’re going to regret that.”

A tiny shiver of terror went down my body at his tone, because I believed him.

He yanked the cups of my bra down, his scalding hot mouth wrapping around my nipple at the same time that two of his fingers sunk into me.

"Fuck!" I shouted my back arching, pushing me into him.

I felt his teeth graze over my nipple while his fingers continue to move inside me. His middle and ring finger were pumping into my pussy, the heel of his hand grinding against my clit.

“Aaron,” I whined, my hips squirming. His mouth lifted from my breast, kissing up my chest until he got to my neck.

“What do you want, baby? Do you want me to make you cum?”

I nodded my head frantically, my hips trying to rock against him.

“Why should I let you cum?” His fingers curled inside of me brushing over my g-spot, pulling a loud moan from me.

I felt my orgasm rushing towards me, threatening to consume me right when his fingers pulled out of me.

“Oh my god,” I whined out, my hand moving down to try and rub my clit. I was right there.

His hand was like a vice on my wrist, stilling my movements. “Ah-ah, no. Bratty little girls don’t get to cum.”

“But I’m so close,” I pleaded, my voice a pathetic whimper.

His lips brushed against mine, softly, teasing. “If you want me to let you cum, then you need to prove you can be a good girl.”

Hearing Aaron Hotchner say the words “good girl” was almost enough to send me over the edge.

“Can you be a good girl, y/n?”

“Yes,” I answered, trying to press my lips more firmly against his.

Without warning his hand moved quickly, slapping against my pussy.

“Fuck!” I shrieked, unprepared for the sensation but so desperate for more.

“Yes, what?”

"Yes sir!" I corrected tears of frustration in my eyes.

He moved off of me then, unbuttoning his shirt before pulling it off his shoulders. “Finish taking your clothes off,” he instructed.

I moved to comply quickly, wincing slightly when I pulled my arm out of my sleeve. My bicep was wrapped in thick gauze, the skin around it looking bruised.

Aaron watched me while he took his pants off. “It’s so hard for me to look at you. Because I see you hurting like that and all I want to do is lay you on this bed and treat you like a princess.” He was naked now, and I tried not to stare at him. I’d seen him in workout clothes, I knew he was well muscled. But I did not know he was so toned and well defined.

His cock was hard, the head wet with precum, and it was bigger than I had expected.

I scooted up the bed when he climbed on, stalking towards me. “I just want to eat your pretty pussy until you cum all over me. Then I want to slide inside you and make you feel so good.”

Aaron’s body was over mine, his arms caging me in. “But I can’t do any of that can I?”

He moved away before I could answer. “No, I can’t. So, you’re going to prove to me that you can follow orders. I’m going to lay on this bed, and you’re going to put that bratty little mouth all over my cock. Do you understand?”

“Yes sir,” I said, scrambling to my knees.

“Such a needy little thing,” he repeated, lying on his back.

One hand braced on the bed, the other reached out to wrap around him. If things were different, I would have teased him, but this fucking need in my body was burning too hot.

I wrapped my lips around the tip of his dick, hollowing out my cheeks, relishing in the guttural moan he let out. I slowly started to bob my head, taking more of him each time I went back down.

“I should have known you’d be good at this,” Aaron groaned out, one hand coming up to grip my hair, guiding my motions. “That smart fucking mouth of yours. You don’t know how many times I’ve thought about your pretty lips wrapped around my dick.”

I moaned against him, rubbing my thighs together at his words.

“You’ve thought about that too, haven’t you dirty girl?” He was lifting his hips now, making shallow thrust into my mouth. “Come on, baby. Take it all the way down. I know you can do it.”

I tried to relax my throat, fighting my gag reflex as tears pricked the corners of my eyes. “Come on, sweet girl. Try for me. Be my good girl so I can finally fuck that wet fucking pussy of yours.”

His words spurred me on, I squeezed my thumb in my fist, moving my head all the way down. I felt him hit the back of my throat; I started to gag, but I swallowed reflexively around him.

“Oh, my fucking god,” he groaned, pumping into my mouth a few more times before pulling me off of him. “There’s my good girl,” he praised, pulling my face up to his. Aaron pressed kisses to the sides of my mouth before his lips slid against mine.

He moved quickly, rolling me onto my back, shoving my thighs apart so he could settle between them. One of my hands fisted in my bedsheets, the other braced on his arm. My eyes were fixed on where our bodies were about to join. Aaron gripped his cock, moving it up and down my slit, coating himself in my arousal.

“Wrap your legs around me, baby,” he murmured, urging my legs higher up his abdomen.

I groaned when I felt the head of his cock slip inside me.

“Jesus, you’re so fucking tight, y/n.”

“Aaron,” I whined, shifting my hips underneath him. I was still so close.

“I’ve got you, needy girl.” He shifted his weight and then slammed inside of me, pulling a scream from my throat.

It didn’t hurt, just the opposite. I had never felt so fucking overwhelmed before.

“Please, please, please,” I pleaded.

One of his hands wrapped around my throat while the other gripped my headboard. He started a brutal pace while his hand squeezed against me. “Reach down and rub your clit, Princess,” he ordered his hips slapping against mine. “Come on. Make your pretty pussy cum all over me.”

He wasn’t even finished speaking before my fingers found my clit, circling it furiously. His grip on my throat loosened slightly, his thrusts becoming a bit sharper.

“I want to hear you fucking scream my name, you bratty little thing.”

“Aaron, Aaron, don’t stop. Please!”

With one more hard thrust, my orgasm crested, tearing through my body. I felt my pussy clamp down on his cock, pulling him over the edge too. He pumped inside of me a few more times, pulling every ounce of pleasure he could from me.

I finally came down from my high only to feel Aaron drop on top of me for a moment before he promptly rolled onto his side, so as not to crush me.

His arm wrapped around me, bringing me flush against his side, my head on his chest.

“I’m still mad at you,” he mumbled.

“I know.”

“I’m a little less mad now.”

I smiled. “I figured.”

--

Taglist: @rachelxwayne​ @pinkdiamond1016​ @sickeninglyshoujo​ @justagirllookingforherplace @nanocoool​ @andiebeaword​ @imjusthereformggcontent @rainsong01 

@spncersreid

#Criminal minds #criminal minds fan fiction #criminal minds smut #Aaron hotchner #Aaron Hotchner imagine #Aaron Hotchner x you #Aaron Hotchner x reader #Aaron Hotchner x y/n #Hotch x reader #Hotch x y/n #Hotch x you #Aaron Hotchner smut #Hotch smut #SSA Aaron hotchner

[thethousandyearwitch]

The Show Must Go On! - A Youtuber AU you didn’t want and didn’t need

Hisoka Morrow, italian Makeup Youtuber, enjoys his life in the comfort and occasional drama of his profession. But nothing brings more drama into his life than the eldest son of the Zoldyck fashion magazine empire.

Meanwhile, aspiring australian Twitch Streamer Gon Freecs forms a special bond to a Speedrunner commonly going by "Kil".

Chapter 1 

FF.net link - AO3 link 

Beep Beep. beep Beep. Click

8:00 am. Hisoka rolled over in his queen-sized bed, groaning at the interruption of his beauty sleep. Setting an early alarm after editing until 2 am was a horrible idea.

He grabbed his phone from his nightstand and rolls onto his back, following his ritual of checking all his notifications in the morning. The video he had uploaded after editing was well received, many comments about how he should try more looks with purple eyeshadow. About 3 years ago he had started his channel “Bubblegumbitch Makeup” as more of a throwaway joke after someone insulted his makeup on Instagram. However, an audience grew quite quickly, and Hisoka had to admit that he enjoyed the attention and luxury of it all. Making money by sitting in front of a camera and applying Makeup while people tell you how good looking you are is a great ego boost.

Half-heartedly he scrolled through his subscription feed, just to see what his competition was up to, though barely anyone had really uploaded during the night. Amateurs and their 'healthy' sleep schedules. A true influencer knows that an audience never sleeps.

 He disregarded his phone somewhere into the pile of pillows that make up his bed and made his way into the bathroom. His morning showers are more functional than enjoyable, quickly rinsing on whatever spirits of sleep may linger on him.

After that, the Makeup artist applied his usual morning creams, body lotion, towel dries his hair, and threw on a pair of grey low-waist sweats and a comfortable white razor-back shirt. Need. Coffee.

 Hisokas flat was a quaint little thing just outside of Rieti. An open imitation marble kitchen, facing the living room equipped with a black leather couch and wall mounted flat screen TV, opening to a relatively small balcony housing a few plants.

Exiting his bedroom, he grabbed the TV remote and switched unto a random morning news show, just needing background noise while he waits for his coffee to brew.

"And preparations are running wild for the annual Fashion Week in Rome. This year the line-up features many new promising designers from all over the globe. Tune in at 10 for more-"

The fashion week! Hisoka grinned, having nearly forgotten about this important event that he had always followed closely. Though rarely attending himself, he had been requested on multiple occasions as a make-up artist for certain models. But there was something more important connected to that special week. He grabbed his fresh cappuccino and strolled back to his room, fishing his phone from the depths of pillow mountain.

"Hisoka: Gooooood Morning! Roma's Fashion Week is coming up, are you going to stop on by? ~"

It didn’t take long before his phone chimed with the familiar Ping of a private Message.

“Bellissimo <3: I will be going to the Show for 4 days. If it proves convenient, I’d drop by for a short collaboration.”

“Hisoka: I’ll be keeping my bed warm~♥️”

“Bellissimo<3: Gross and unnecessary. I will book a room in my usual hotel in Rome. I’ll drop by for the Collaboration on Monday afternoon, and leave after.”

“Bellissimo<3: I will send you some sample pieces later, please come up with a look for one of them, and don’t just ‘wing it’ like last time.”

Hisoka giggled before disregarding his phone again. Illumi Zoldyck, breakthrough Fashion Designer from England, and eldest son of Zoldyck fashion magazine empire, who often uploaded videos of his artistic process on his channel “I. Zoldyck Fashion”. They had met 2 years ago, at a smaller Paris fashion show, the first one Hisoka ever attended. A model had requested Hisoka as her makeup artist, while Illumi had been working on a dress for her, and the two of them ended up working closely together to properly coordinate colours with each other. And though Illumi expressed great annoyance with Hisoka, they exchanged numbers, and started to make collab videos whenever they fell into the same place. Something about working together with Illumi got Hisokas heart racing. Seeing the camera-shy man get increasingly more frustrated with his antics was a joy that could hardly be topped.

But he didn’t have time to dwell in good memories and spine-tingling anticipation. He had work to do. And so once again he chucked his phone back into the pillow-cave system and made his way into his recording room.

It was a small office space, on one side an office Desk with a Desktop Computer, a couple of small succulent plants framing it, and a comfy black office chair. On the other side a set-up to record videos, with a white-pink gradient wall, a stainless white desk with a small mirror standing on it, and a less-comfy stool to sit on. In a smooth motion, Hisoka downed the rest of his coffee, set the cup aside, and started the camera. The night before he had laid out everything for his next video, a review for a new eyeshadow palette released by another Beauty Youtuber, still trying to get into the game. How Cute.

Hisoka clapped his hands together, putting on his best camera smile. “Hey, Scum! ~ Today I have a very special treat for you all. I got my hands on the new Togari Palette ‘Hunting for Your Dreams’, his first release.” He held up the shimmering silver case and opened it up for the camera to reveal 6 eyeshadows in various shades of orange and red. About half an hour and a couple try hard glamour shots later, Hisoka dropped the Palette with a grin, staring directly into the Camera. In addition to his signature Star and Teardrop under his eyes, he had attempted to imitate a flame-inspired eyeshadow look. “Well, this has been an absolute disaster. I feel like I’m losing clumps of eyeshadow every time I blink, and it feels sandy and irritating on my skin. But you have got to give it to Togari: I have never seen a Palette that features colours that are eye-biting and yet completely bland before. Though the surprise gift of a long, brown hair inside the sealed Palette wasn’t for me. But you know, if you see these Palettes in your local bargain bin, I’d say go for it.” He gave a cheeky wink, before rattling off his usual goodbyes, like and subscribe, yadda yadda.

Click.

Hisoka took the camera and set it by his computer. Before he could even think about editing, he must wipe away whatever the hell was in that shabby palette. Of course it wasn’t the worst make-up he had ever worn; it probably wouldn’t even make it in the bottom 10, he wasn’t here to make friends and spoon-feed his competition compliments. If a creator dares to churn out a subpar product, they have to deal with the consequences.

After practically subjecting himself to water torture via make-up remover towels, the man grabbed another whiteclaw from the fridge, and settled into his office chair. Digging through business emails was a boring, repetitive task, deleting promo-email after promo-email, practically begging him to promote some skin-care vitamins or boring phone app. Clicking the nails of his free hand against his desk, he tapped away at the delete button in a rhythm only known to him.

Finally reaching the bottom of his inbox, he switched to his private Inbox with a satisfied smile, an expected email already waiting for him. “From: I. Zoldyck: Roma Fashion Week Promos”.  To my private Email, dear Illumi? How shockingly Intimate~ Hisoka mocked in his head while opening the mail.  

“Hisoka.

Attached are 3 Designs I plan to show off at the show. Chose one for the collaboration and let me know in time.

Sincerely,

Illumi Zoldyck.”

Under his signature, 3 files were lined up, boringly titled “Design Roma 1/2/3”. Hisoka opened the first file and is greeted by a 2-piece suit with a light pink base colour, and blue-green flower highlights that frame the pockets and seams of the jacket, and the belt of the pants. Not bad, not bad.

The second file contained another 2-piece suit, this time with a black base colour, and a repeating roman-vase pattern in eye-catching blues, pinks, and oranges. Lovely pattern, and what a revealing jacket cut~. He was sure he had found his favourite, already planning a matching make-up look. But it wouldn’t hurt looking at the last design for pity, right?

Hisoka audibly gasped in a mixture of shock and flattery and laid a hand over his heart to complete the star performance. Staring back at him was a beautiful white-jeans design, patterned with colourful card-suits dotting the jacket and pants. The pattern was ever so slightly washed out, faking a vintage look. This is it. Mine. His heart was beating through his chest, and for the first time in a while he was truly speechless.

He had 3 more weeks until the show, but his mind was already bursting with inspiration, and when he later laid in bed, he couldn’t contain his grin as he texted.

“Hisoka: You already know which one im choosing~♥️♥️♥️”

 --------------------------------------------

Gon had been streaming for a good hour or so, talking excitedly to his chat about the new Season of Fortnite, admiring new skins that he was definitely going to try and get. Every new pass just meant a new challenge for him to prove himself, and it was undeniable that it was satisfying to work and game hard to get what he wanted. Just as he was about to ask chat if he should go another row, or change games for the night, a discord message drew his attention away.

“Kil: Yo, wanna team up? :p”

Filled with even more excitement, Gon returned his attention back to his stream. “Everyone, today we are going to feature a special guest!”

#Hisoillu #killugon #Hunter X Hunter #fanfiction #hxh fanfic

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S3 Ep 15&16: Noah’s Freakin Dead

I normally space these out a little bit more but like, you saw the title, I kinda need to talk about this situation.

First off, we’ve finally arrived in Kaiba Land, and Seto’s long term memory has gotten so bad at this point he doesn’t seem to remember he’s already built this building

And bro was like “yeah so the show just kinda pretends like Kaiba Land has never been a thing before now and Seto will have to build it allll over again” and like...

...that’s some intense retconning right there.

Anyways, cool fact about Kaiba Land--it is apparently the easiest place to hack into.

Chess, huh? Kaiba sure did make a security system that is just chess. Course Kaiba was also the one that got kidnapped by his business partners three times, counting Pegasus. He’s not great at security. He keeps hiring all these guards but clearly those guards are just Dad stand-ins that he keeps around to occasionally pat him on the head, because...

...Chess huh?

Course considering Seto wiped out all the Security in North America by crashing a satellite that one time, maybe he decided digital locks and firewalls were overrated.

(read more)

Inside of the impossible to solve Chess riddle that he solved immediately is an abandoned warehouse.

Ya.

But here in this warehouse was one of those floaty doors, and on the other side, for once, wasn’t some sort of card game. Instead it was like...unintentionally kind of spooky. Like I don’t know what it is about old timey film equipment but it just has this vibe that something that’s been kept around this long might have a murder on it.

Which there was, PS there was totally a murder on this that bro said they’ve edited out of the English dub. Or maybe the actual incident happens in another episode. Either way, cat’s out of the bag, Noah’s freakin dead.

So now we get to see home movies of when Noah was a little kid but like...apparently Noah was the same at 3 yo as he is at 12. Either way, we get to see Gozoboro on his only time off he’s taken in 50 years, and for some reason his time off outfit has a little boater hat while his “I’m working” outfit had a cravat.

Gozoboro’s fashion is really kind of fascinating. Firstly because he does wear shorts occasionally, which is not at all his MO, and also because that salmon suit sat somewhere next to that boater hat and that hawaiian shirt for like who knows how many years and he never thought that was weird.

Speaking of weird:

SO CLOSE to 169 Y’all. It’s gotta be Duke. Duke’s gotta be death 169, I’m calling it right here.

Anyway, we finally find out why Noah hasn’t aged. At this point there was really only 2 explanations -- he’s a cursed dead person (like half our cast, so it’s a good guess), or he’s a robot.

What’s great about Noah is that you are correct if you chose either route because he’s both, as a ghost who haunts a freakin video game.

Ya, that’s right, I cannot freakin believe Yugioh freakin Ben Drowned me.

In this case, it’s more of a Noah Got Hit By A Car But Only In The Japanese Version. Which is probably too long to be a save file on your copy of Zelda.

I mean, this whole show is a creepypasta so I should have seen this coming, but I didn’t think we’d get a Ben. But once again, Yugioh forsees the need for fanfiction and just writes it in itself. Congrats, Kaiba.

Also I DEFFO remember reading like 2 or 3 creepypastas in High School where an adopted kid’s step brother from his adoptive parent’s first child haunted them from their closet or something. Like how many creepypastas did I not realize were just people writing Yugioh fanfiction? Like a lot right? A lot?

Anyways, Seto is unfazed because he has a clinical condition where he cannot think ghosts actually exist.

On the other side of...the field? The VR zone? Whatever you call the expanse between the miles Seto walked and the 2 turns Joey and Yugi have played, the Big 5 assemble and Voltron to their ultimate form.

Multi headed dragon--looks better this time.

I still don’t like it, the shoulders are not my favorite thing ever, like why would it only have one clavicle? But it’s much improved.

Anyways, the kids make cheap work of it because this is the second time they’ve beaten the same dragon. The way that they did it took me a little bit by surprise though.

Remember how I was like “well, because they have to localize for a zillion different countries they can’t put in REAL currency” well nah. That’s--apparently not a thing because that is American currency on a card.

Thanks, Pegasus.

Thanks.

I guess we’ve been using Millennium Pennies because it’s the official coinage of Domino? OR...Yugi really has just been minting these in the background this entire time, which now seems a lot more likely.

I’ll be honest I was way more upset about real ass pennies being real than Noah being a creepypasta.

There it goes, goodbye Tristan’s body.

Again, I’d be fine if this was him for the rest of the series. That would be fine.

Anyway, speaking of Ben Drowned--Mokuba’s stance. This is just how he permanently is now. Good ol statue Mokuba.

I mean it sucks Mokuba got mind controlled and brainwashed, but to his credit, Noah has been treating this kid a lot better than everyone else who has abducted Mokuba.

But ya so now the Big 5 should be taken care of maybe. I feel like it’s too early to call it a death count because...firstly this localization wouldn’t tell me if there was a murder just now, and also because Noah seems really bad at this. For all we know, the Big 5 will show up again...next episode. I don’t think Noah has any better security than Seto does. This Digital prison he sent them to is probably a lock made with one game of Uno.

Anyway, if you just got here, this is a link to read the recaps from S1 Ep1 in Chronological order

#Yugioh #yu gi oh #episode recap #photo recap #recap #S3 Ep 15 #S3 Ep 16 #Noah Kaiba #GHOSTS #Seto Kaiba #Yugi Muto #Tristan is still 5 people #Tristan is also still a robot monkey #Joey Wheeler #Mokuba I guess

[whitelabelseoreseller]

How to Get a Customer to Edit Their Negative Review

Posted by MiriamEllis

“When you forgive, you in no way change the pas — but you sure do change the future.” — Bernard Meltzer

Your brand inhabits a challenging world in which its consumers’ words make up the bulk of your reputation. Negative reviews can feel like the ultimate revenge, punishing dissatisfactory experiences with public shaming, eroded local rankings, and attendant revenue loss. Some business owners become so worried about negative reviews, they head to fora asking if there is any way to opt-out and even querying whether they should simply remove their business listings altogether rather than face the discordant music.

But hang in there. Local business customers may be more forgiving than you think. In fact, your customers may think differently than you might think. 

I’ve just completed a study of consumer behavior as it relates to negative reviews becoming positive ones and I believe this blog post will hold some very welcome surprises for concerned local business owners and their marketers — I know that some of what I learned both surprised and delighted me. In fact, it’s convinced me that, in case after case, negative reviews aren’t what we might think they are at all.

Let’s study this together, with real-world examples, data, a poll, and takeaways that could transform your outlook. 

Stats to start with

Your company winds up with a negative review, and the possibility of a permanently lost customer. Marketing wisdom tells us that it’s more costly to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one happy. But it's actually more far-reaching. The following list of stats tells the story of why you want to do anything you can to get the customer to edit a bad review to reflect more positive sentiment:

57 percent of consumers will only use a business if it has four or more stars — (BrightLocal)

One study showed that ~1.5-star rating increase improved conversions from 10.4 percent to 12.8 percent, representing about 13,000 more leads for the brand. — (Location3)

73.8 percent of customers are either likely or extremely likely to continue doing business with a brand that resolves their complaints. — (GatherUp)

A typical business only hears from four percent of its dissatisfied customers, meaning that the negative reviews you rectify for outspoken people could solve problems for silent ones. — (Ruby Newell-Lerner)

89 percent of consumers read businesses' responses to reviews. — (BrightLocal)

The impact of ratings, reviews, and responses are so clear that every local brand needs to devote resources to better understanding this scenario of sentiment and customer retention.

People power: One reason consumers love reviews

The Better Business Bureau was founded in 1912. The Federal Trade Commission made its debut just two years later. Consumer protections are deemed a necessity, but until the internet put the potential of mass reviews directly into individuals hands, the “little guy” often felt he lacked a truly audible voice when the “big guy” (business) didn’t do right by him.

You can see how local business review platforms have become a bully pulpit, empowering everyday people to make their feelings known to a large audience. And, you can see from reviews, like the one below, the relish with which some consumers embrace that power:

Here, a customer is boasting the belief that they outwitted an entity which would otherwise have defrauded them, if not for the influence of a review platform. That’s our first impression. But if we look a little closer, what we’re really seeing here is that the platform is a communications tool between consumer and brand. The reviewer is saying:

“The business has to do right by me if I put this on Yelp!”

What they’re communicating isn’t nice, and may well be untrue, but it is certainly a message they want to be amplified.

And this is where things get interesting.

Brand power: Full of surprises!

This month, I created a spreadsheet to organize data I was collecting about negative reviews being transformed into positive ones. I searched Yelp for the phrase “edited my review” in cities in every region of the United States and quickly amassed 50 examples for in-depth analysis. In the process, I discovered three pieces of information that could be relevant to your brand.

Surprise #1: Many consumers think of their reviews as living documents

In this first example, we see a customer who left a review after having trouble making an appointment and promising to update their content once they’d experienced actual service. As I combed through consumer sentiment, I was enlightened to discover that many people treat reviews as live objects, updating them over time to reflect evolving experiences. How far do reviewers go with this approach? Just look:

In the above example, the customer has handled their review in four separate updates spanning several days. If you look at the stars, they went from high to low to high again. It’s akin to live updates from a sporting event, and that honestly surprised me to see.

Brands should see this as good news because it means an initial negative review doesn’t have to be set in stone.

Surprise #2: Consumers can be incredibly forgiving

“What really defines you is how you handle the situation after you realize you made a mistake.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself, and this edited review typifies for me the reasonableness I saw in case after case. Far from being the scary, irrational customers that business owners dread, it's clear that many people have the basic understanding that mistakes can happen… and can be rectified. I even saw people forgiving auto dealerships for damaging their cars, once things had been made right.

Surprise #3: Consumers can be self-correcting.

The customer apparently isn’t “always right,” and some of them know it. I saw several instances of customers editing their reviews after realizing that they were the ones who made a mistake. For example, one rather long review saga contained this:

“I didn't realize they had an hourly option so my initial review was 3 stars. However, after the company letting me know they'd be happy to modify my charges since I overlooked the hourly option, it was only fair to edit my review. I thought that was really nice of them. 5 stars and will be using them again in the future.”

When a customer has initially misunderstood a policy or offering and the business in question takes the time to clarify things, fair-minded individuals can feel honor-bound to update their reviews. Many updated reviews contained phrases like “in good conscience” and “in all fairness.”

Overall, in studying this group of reviewers, I found them to be reasonable people, meaning that your brand has (surprising) significant power to work with dissatisfied customers to win back their respect and their business.

How negative reviews become positive: Identifying winning patterns

In my case study, the dominant, overall pattern of negative reviews being transformed into positive ones consisted of these three Rs:

Reach — the customer reaches out with their negative experience, often knowing that, in this day and age, powerful review platforms are a way to reach brands.

Remedy — Some type of fix occurs, whether this results from intervention on the part of the brand, a second positive experience outweighing an initial negative one, or the consumer self-correcting their own misunderstanding.

Restoration — The unhappy customer is restored to the business as a happy one, hopefully, ready to trust the brand for future transactions, and the reputation of the brand is restored by an edited review reflecting better satisfaction.

Now, let’s bucket this general pattern into smaller segments for a more nuanced understanding. Note: There is an overlap in the following information, as some customers experienced multiple positive elements that convinced them to update their reviews.

Key to review transformation:

70 percent mentioned poor service/rude service rectified by a second experience in which staff demonstrated caring.

64 percent mentioned the owner/manager/staff proactively, directly reached out to the customer with a remedy.

32 percent mentioned item replaced or job re-done for free.

20 percent mentioned customer decided to give a business a second chance on their own and was better-pleased by a second experience.

6 percent mentioned customer realized the fault for a misunderstanding was theirs.

From this data, two insights become clear and belong at the core of your reputation strategy:

Poor and rude service seriously fuel negative reviews

This correlates well with the findings of an earlier GatherUp study demonstrating that 57 percent of consumer complaints revolve around customer service and employee behavior. It’s critical to realize that nearly three-quarters of these disasters could be turned around with subsequent excellent service. As one customer in my study phrased it:

“X has since gone above and beyond to resolve the issue and make me feel like they cared.”

Proactive outreach is your negative review repair kit

Well over half of the subjects in my study specifically mentioned that the business had reached out to them in some way. I suspect many instances of such outreach went undocumented in the review updates, so the number may actually be much higher than represented.

Outreach can happen in a variety of ways:

The business may recognize who the customer is and have their name and number on file due to a contract.

The business may not know who the customer is but can provide an owner response to the review that includes the company’s contact information and an earnest request to get in touch.

The business can DM the customer if the negative review is on Yelp.

You’re being given a second chance if you get the customer’s ear a second time. It’s then up to your brand to do everything you can to change their opinion. Here’s one customer’s description of how far a local business was willing to go to get back into his good graces:

“X made every effort to make up for the failed programming and the lack of customer service the night before. My sales rep, his manager and even the finance rep reached out by phone, text and email. I was actually in meetings all morning, watching my phone buzz with what turned out to be their calls, as they attempted to find out what they could do to make amends. Mark came over on my lunch break, fixed/reprogrammed the remote and even comped me a free tank of gas for my next fill up. I appreciated his sincere apologies and wanted to update/revise my review as a token of my appreciation.”

What a great example of dedication to earning forgiveness!

Should you actively ask restored customers to edit their negative reviews?

I confess — this setup makes me a bit nervous. I took Twitter poll to gauge sentiment among my followers:

Respondents showed strong support for asking a customer who has been restored to happiness to edit their review. However, I would add a few provisos.

Firstly, not one of the subjects in my study mentioned that the business requested they update their review. Perhaps it went undocumented, but there was absolutely zero suggestion that restored customers had been prompted to re-review the business.

Secondly, I would want to be 100 percent certain that the customer is, indeed, delighted again. Otherwise, you could end up with something truly awful on your review profile, like this:

Suffice it to say, never demand an edited review, and certainly don’t use one as blackmail!

With a nod to the Twitter poll, I think it might be alright to mention you’d appreciate an updated review. I’d be extremely choosy about how you word your request so as not to make the customer feel obligated in any way. And I’d only do so if the customer was truly, sincerely restored to a sense of trust and well-being by the brand.

So what are negative reviews, really?

In so many cases, negative reviews are neither punishment nor the end of the road.

They are, in fact, a form of customer outreach that’s often akin to a cry for help.

Someone trusted your business and was disappointed. Your brand needs to equip itself to ride to the rescue. I was struck by how many reviewers said they felt uncared-for, and impressed by how business owners like this one completely turned things around:

In this light, review platforms are simply a communications medium hosting back-and-forth between customer people and business people. Communicate with a rescue plan and your reputation can “sparkle like diamonds”, too.

Reviews-in-progress

I want to close by mentioning how evident it was to me, upon completing this study, that reviewers take their task seriously. The average word count of the Yelp reviews I surveyed was about 250 words. If half of the 12,584 words I examined expressed disappointment, your brand is empowered to make the other half express forgiveness for mistakes and restoration of trust.

It could well be that the industry term “negative” review is misleading, causing unnecessary fear for local brands and their marketers. What if, instead, we thought of this influential content as “reviews-in-progress,” with the potential for transformation charting the mastery of your brand at customer service.

The short road is that you prevent negative experiences by doubling down on staff hiring and training practices that leave people with nothing to complain about in the entire customer service ecosystem. But re-dubbing online records of inevitable mistakes as “reviews-in-progress” simply means treading a slightly longer road to reputation, retention, and revenue. If your local brand is in business for the long haul, you’ve got this!

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[theinjectlikes2]

How to Get a Customer to Edit Their Negative Review

Posted by MiriamEllis

“When you forgive, you in no way change the pas — but you sure do change the future.” — Bernard Meltzer

Your brand inhabits a challenging world in which its consumers’ words make up the bulk of your reputation. Negative reviews can feel like the ultimate revenge, punishing dissatisfactory experiences with public shaming, eroded local rankings, and attendant revenue loss. Some business owners become so worried about negative reviews, they head to fora asking if there is any way to opt-out and even querying whether they should simply remove their business listings altogether rather than face the discordant music.

But hang in there. Local business customers may be more forgiving than you think. In fact, your customers may think differently than you might think. 

I’ve just completed a study of consumer behavior as it relates to negative reviews becoming positive ones and I believe this blog post will hold some very welcome surprises for concerned local business owners and their marketers — I know that some of what I learned both surprised and delighted me. In fact, it’s convinced me that, in case after case, negative reviews aren’t what we might think they are at all.

Let’s study this together, with real-world examples, data, a poll, and takeaways that could transform your outlook. 

Stats to start with

Your company winds up with a negative review, and the possibility of a permanently lost customer. Marketing wisdom tells us that it’s more costly to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one happy. But it's actually more far-reaching. The following list of stats tells the story of why you want to do anything you can to get the customer to edit a bad review to reflect more positive sentiment:

57 percent of consumers will only use a business if it has four or more stars — (BrightLocal)

One study showed that ~1.5-star rating increase improved conversions from 10.4 percent to 12.8 percent, representing about 13,000 more leads for the brand. — (Location3)

73.8 percent of customers are either likely or extremely likely to continue doing business with a brand that resolves their complaints. — (GatherUp)

A typical business only hears from four percent of its dissatisfied customers, meaning that the negative reviews you rectify for outspoken people could solve problems for silent ones. — (Ruby Newell-Lerner)

89 percent of consumers read businesses' responses to reviews. — (BrightLocal)

The impact of ratings, reviews, and responses are so clear that every local brand needs to devote resources to better understanding this scenario of sentiment and customer retention.

People power: One reason consumers love reviews

The Better Business Bureau was founded in 1912. The Federal Trade Commission made its debut just two years later. Consumer protections are deemed a necessity, but until the internet put the potential of mass reviews directly into individuals hands, the “little guy” often felt he lacked a truly audible voice when the “big guy” (business) didn’t do right by him.

You can see how local business review platforms have become a bully pulpit, empowering everyday people to make their feelings known to a large audience. And, you can see from reviews, like the one below, the relish with which some consumers embrace that power:

Here, a customer is boasting the belief that they outwitted an entity which would otherwise have defrauded them, if not for the influence of a review platform. That’s our first impression. But if we look a little closer, what we’re really seeing here is that the platform is a communications tool between consumer and brand. The reviewer is saying:

“The business has to do right by me if I put this on Yelp!”

What they’re communicating isn’t nice, and may well be untrue, but it is certainly a message they want to be amplified.

And this is where things get interesting.

Brand power: Full of surprises!

This month, I created a spreadsheet to organize data I was collecting about negative reviews being transformed into positive ones. I searched Yelp for the phrase “edited my review” in cities in every region of the United States and quickly amassed 50 examples for in-depth analysis. In the process, I discovered three pieces of information that could be relevant to your brand.

Surprise #1: Many consumers think of their reviews as living documents

In this first example, we see a customer who left a review after having trouble making an appointment and promising to update their content once they’d experienced actual service. As I combed through consumer sentiment, I was enlightened to discover that many people treat reviews as live objects, updating them over time to reflect evolving experiences. How far do reviewers go with this approach? Just look:

In the above example, the customer has handled their review in four separate updates spanning several days. If you look at the stars, they went from high to low to high again. It’s akin to live updates from a sporting event, and that honestly surprised me to see.

Brands should see this as good news because it means an initial negative review doesn’t have to be set in stone.

Surprise #2: Consumers can be incredibly forgiving

“What really defines you is how you handle the situation after you realize you made a mistake.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself, and this edited review typifies for me the reasonableness I saw in case after case. Far from being the scary, irrational customers that business owners dread, it's clear that many people have the basic understanding that mistakes can happen… and can be rectified. I even saw people forgiving auto dealerships for damaging their cars, once things had been made right.

Surprise #3: Consumers can be self-correcting.

The customer apparently isn’t “always right,” and some of them know it. I saw several instances of customers editing their reviews after realizing that they were the ones who made a mistake. For example, one rather long review saga contained this:

“I didn't realize they had an hourly option so my initial review was 3 stars. However, after the company letting me know they'd be happy to modify my charges since I overlooked the hourly option, it was only fair to edit my review. I thought that was really nice of them. 5 stars and will be using them again in the future.”

When a customer has initially misunderstood a policy or offering and the business in question takes the time to clarify things, fair-minded individuals can feel honor-bound to update their reviews. Many updated reviews contained phrases like “in good conscience” and “in all fairness.”

Overall, in studying this group of reviewers, I found them to be reasonable people, meaning that your brand has (surprising) significant power to work with dissatisfied customers to win back their respect and their business.

How negative reviews become positive: Identifying winning patterns

In my case study, the dominant, overall pattern of negative reviews being transformed into positive ones consisted of these three Rs:

Reach — the customer reaches out with their negative experience, often knowing that, in this day and age, powerful review platforms are a way to reach brands.

Remedy — Some type of fix occurs, whether this results from intervention on the part of the brand, a second positive experience outweighing an initial negative one, or the consumer self-correcting their own misunderstanding.

Restoration — The unhappy customer is restored to the business as a happy one, hopefully, ready to trust the brand for future transactions, and the reputation of the brand is restored by an edited review reflecting better satisfaction.

Now, let’s bucket this general pattern into smaller segments for a more nuanced understanding. Note: There is an overlap in the following information, as some customers experienced multiple positive elements that convinced them to update their reviews.

Key to review transformation:

70 percent mentioned poor service/rude service rectified by a second experience in which staff demonstrated caring.

64 percent mentioned the owner/manager/staff proactively, directly reached out to the customer with a remedy.

32 percent mentioned item replaced or job re-done for free.

20 percent mentioned customer decided to give a business a second chance on their own and was better-pleased by a second experience.

6 percent mentioned customer realized the fault for a misunderstanding was theirs.

From this data, two insights become clear and belong at the core of your reputation strategy:

Poor and rude service seriously fuel negative reviews

This correlates well with the findings of an earlier GatherUp study demonstrating that 57 percent of consumer complaints revolve around customer service and employee behavior. It’s critical to realize that nearly three-quarters of these disasters could be turned around with subsequent excellent service. As one customer in my study phrased it:

“X has since gone above and beyond to resolve the issue and make me feel like they cared.”

Proactive outreach is your negative review repair kit

Well over half of the subjects in my study specifically mentioned that the business had reached out to them in some way. I suspect many instances of such outreach went undocumented in the review updates, so the number may actually be much higher than represented.

Outreach can happen in a variety of ways:

The business may recognize who the customer is and have their name and number on file due to a contract.

The business may not know who the customer is but can provide an owner response to the review that includes the company’s contact information and an earnest request to get in touch.

The business can DM the customer if the negative review is on Yelp.

You’re being given a second chance if you get the customer’s ear a second time. It’s then up to your brand to do everything you can to change their opinion. Here’s one customer’s description of how far a local business was willing to go to get back into his good graces:

“X made every effort to make up for the failed programming and the lack of customer service the night before. My sales rep, his manager and even the finance rep reached out by phone, text and email. I was actually in meetings all morning, watching my phone buzz with what turned out to be their calls, as they attempted to find out what they could do to make amends. Mark came over on my lunch break, fixed/reprogrammed the remote and even comped me a free tank of gas for my next fill up. I appreciated his sincere apologies and wanted to update/revise my review as a token of my appreciation.”

What a great example of dedication to earning forgiveness!

Should you actively ask restored customers to edit their negative reviews?

I confess — this setup makes me a bit nervous. I took Twitter poll to gauge sentiment among my followers:

Respondents showed strong support for asking a customer who has been restored to happiness to edit their review. However, I would add a few provisos.

Firstly, not one of the subjects in my study mentioned that the business requested they update their review. Perhaps it went undocumented, but there was absolutely zero suggestion that restored customers had been prompted to re-review the business.

Secondly, I would want to be 100 percent certain that the customer is, indeed, delighted again. Otherwise, you could end up with something truly awful on your review profile, like this:

Suffice it to say, never demand an edited review, and certainly don’t use one as blackmail!

With a nod to the Twitter poll, I think it might be alright to mention you’d appreciate an updated review. I’d be extremely choosy about how you word your request so as not to make the customer feel obligated in any way. And I’d only do so if the customer was truly, sincerely restored to a sense of trust and well-being by the brand.

So what are negative reviews, really?

In so many cases, negative reviews are neither punishment nor the end of the road.

They are, in fact, a form of customer outreach that’s often akin to a cry for help.

Someone trusted your business and was disappointed. Your brand needs to equip itself to ride to the rescue. I was struck by how many reviewers said they felt uncared-for, and impressed by how business owners like this one completely turned things around:

In this light, review platforms are simply a communications medium hosting back-and-forth between customer people and business people. Communicate with a rescue plan and your reputation can “sparkle like diamonds”, too.

Reviews-in-progress

I want to close by mentioning how evident it was to me, upon completing this study, that reviewers take their task seriously. The average word count of the Yelp reviews I surveyed was about 250 words. If half of the 12,584 words I examined expressed disappointment, your brand is empowered to make the other half express forgiveness for mistakes and restoration of trust.

It could well be that the industry term “negative” review is misleading, causing unnecessary fear for local brands and their marketers. What if, instead, we thought of this influential content as “reviews-in-progress,” with the potential for transformation charting the mastery of your brand at customer service.

The short road is that you prevent negative experiences by doubling down on staff hiring and training practices that leave people with nothing to complain about in the entire customer service ecosystem. But re-dubbing online records of inevitable mistakes as “reviews-in-progress” simply means treading a slightly longer road to reputation, retention, and revenue. If your local brand is in business for the long haul, you’ve got this!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

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[nutrifami]

How to Get a Customer to Edit Their Negative Review

Posted by MiriamEllis

“When you forgive, you in no way change the pas — but you sure do change the future.” — Bernard Meltzer

Your brand inhabits a challenging world in which its consumers’ words make up the bulk of your reputation. Negative reviews can feel like the ultimate revenge, punishing dissatisfactory experiences with public shaming, eroded local rankings, and attendant revenue loss. Some business owners become so worried about negative reviews, they head to fora asking if there is any way to opt-out and even querying whether they should simply remove their business listings altogether rather than face the discordant music.

But hang in there. Local business customers may be more forgiving than you think. In fact, your customers may think differently than you might think. 

I’ve just completed a study of consumer behavior as it relates to negative reviews becoming positive ones and I believe this blog post will hold some very welcome surprises for concerned local business owners and their marketers — I know that some of what I learned both surprised and delighted me. In fact, it’s convinced me that, in case after case, negative reviews aren’t what we might think they are at all.

Let’s study this together, with real-world examples, data, a poll, and takeaways that could transform your outlook. 

Stats to start with

Your company winds up with a negative review, and the possibility of a permanently lost customer. Marketing wisdom tells us that it’s more costly to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one happy. But it's actually more far-reaching. The following list of stats tells the story of why you want to do anything you can to get the customer to edit a bad review to reflect more positive sentiment:

57 percent of consumers will only use a business if it has four or more stars — (BrightLocal)

One study showed that ~1.5-star rating increase improved conversions from 10.4 percent to 12.8 percent, representing about 13,000 more leads for the brand. — (Location3)

73.8 percent of customers are either likely or extremely likely to continue doing business with a brand that resolves their complaints. — (GatherUp)

A typical business only hears from four percent of its dissatisfied customers, meaning that the negative reviews you rectify for outspoken people could solve problems for silent ones. — (Ruby Newell-Lerner)

89 percent of consumers read businesses' responses to reviews. — (BrightLocal)

The impact of ratings, reviews, and responses are so clear that every local brand needs to devote resources to better understanding this scenario of sentiment and customer retention.

People power: One reason consumers love reviews

The Better Business Bureau was founded in 1912. The Federal Trade Commission made its debut just two years later. Consumer protections are deemed a necessity, but until the internet put the potential of mass reviews directly into individuals hands, the “little guy” often felt he lacked a truly audible voice when the “big guy” (business) didn’t do right by him.

You can see how local business review platforms have become a bully pulpit, empowering everyday people to make their feelings known to a large audience. And, you can see from reviews, like the one below, the relish with which some consumers embrace that power:

Here, a customer is boasting the belief that they outwitted an entity which would otherwise have defrauded them, if not for the influence of a review platform. That’s our first impression. But if we look a little closer, what we’re really seeing here is that the platform is a communications tool between consumer and brand. The reviewer is saying:

“The business has to do right by me if I put this on Yelp!”

What they’re communicating isn’t nice, and may well be untrue, but it is certainly a message they want to be amplified.

And this is where things get interesting.

Brand power: Full of surprises!

This month, I created a spreadsheet to organize data I was collecting about negative reviews being transformed into positive ones. I searched Yelp for the phrase “edited my review” in cities in every region of the United States and quickly amassed 50 examples for in-depth analysis. In the process, I discovered three pieces of information that could be relevant to your brand.

Surprise #1: Many consumers think of their reviews as living documents

In this first example, we see a customer who left a review after having trouble making an appointment and promising to update their content once they’d experienced actual service. As I combed through consumer sentiment, I was enlightened to discover that many people treat reviews as live objects, updating them over time to reflect evolving experiences. How far do reviewers go with this approach? Just look:

In the above example, the customer has handled their review in four separate updates spanning several days. If you look at the stars, they went from high to low to high again. It’s akin to live updates from a sporting event, and that honestly surprised me to see.

Brands should see this as good news because it means an initial negative review doesn’t have to be set in stone.

Surprise #2: Consumers can be incredibly forgiving

“What really defines you is how you handle the situation after you realize you made a mistake.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself, and this edited review typifies for me the reasonableness I saw in case after case. Far from being the scary, irrational customers that business owners dread, it's clear that many people have the basic understanding that mistakes can happen… and can be rectified. I even saw people forgiving auto dealerships for damaging their cars, once things had been made right.

Surprise #3: Consumers can be self-correcting.

The customer apparently isn’t “always right,” and some of them know it. I saw several instances of customers editing their reviews after realizing that they were the ones who made a mistake. For example, one rather long review saga contained this:

“I didn't realize they had an hourly option so my initial review was 3 stars. However, after the company letting me know they'd be happy to modify my charges since I overlooked the hourly option, it was only fair to edit my review. I thought that was really nice of them. 5 stars and will be using them again in the future.”

When a customer has initially misunderstood a policy or offering and the business in question takes the time to clarify things, fair-minded individuals can feel honor-bound to update their reviews. Many updated reviews contained phrases like “in good conscience” and “in all fairness.”

Overall, in studying this group of reviewers, I found them to be reasonable people, meaning that your brand has (surprising) significant power to work with dissatisfied customers to win back their respect and their business.

How negative reviews become positive: Identifying winning patterns

In my case study, the dominant, overall pattern of negative reviews being transformed into positive ones consisted of these three Rs:

Reach — the customer reaches out with their negative experience, often knowing that, in this day and age, powerful review platforms are a way to reach brands.

Remedy — Some type of fix occurs, whether this results from intervention on the part of the brand, a second positive experience outweighing an initial negative one, or the consumer self-correcting their own misunderstanding.

Restoration — The unhappy customer is restored to the business as a happy one, hopefully, ready to trust the brand for future transactions, and the reputation of the brand is restored by an edited review reflecting better satisfaction.

Now, let’s bucket this general pattern into smaller segments for a more nuanced understanding. Note: There is an overlap in the following information, as some customers experienced multiple positive elements that convinced them to update their reviews.

Key to review transformation:

70 percent mentioned poor service/rude service rectified by a second experience in which staff demonstrated caring.

64 percent mentioned the owner/manager/staff proactively, directly reached out to the customer with a remedy.

32 percent mentioned item replaced or job re-done for free.

20 percent mentioned customer decided to give a business a second chance on their own and was better-pleased by a second experience.

6 percent mentioned customer realized the fault for a misunderstanding was theirs.

From this data, two insights become clear and belong at the core of your reputation strategy:

Poor and rude service seriously fuel negative reviews

This correlates well with the findings of an earlier GatherUp study demonstrating that 57 percent of consumer complaints revolve around customer service and employee behavior. It’s critical to realize that nearly three-quarters of these disasters could be turned around with subsequent excellent service. As one customer in my study phrased it:

“X has since gone above and beyond to resolve the issue and make me feel like they cared.”

Proactive outreach is your negative review repair kit

Well over half of the subjects in my study specifically mentioned that the business had reached out to them in some way. I suspect many instances of such outreach went undocumented in the review updates, so the number may actually be much higher than represented.

Outreach can happen in a variety of ways:

The business may recognize who the customer is and have their name and number on file due to a contract.

The business may not know who the customer is but can provide an owner response to the review that includes the company’s contact information and an earnest request to get in touch.

The business can DM the customer if the negative review is on Yelp.

You’re being given a second chance if you get the customer’s ear a second time. It’s then up to your brand to do everything you can to change their opinion. Here’s one customer’s description of how far a local business was willing to go to get back into his good graces:

“X made every effort to make up for the failed programming and the lack of customer service the night before. My sales rep, his manager and even the finance rep reached out by phone, text and email. I was actually in meetings all morning, watching my phone buzz with what turned out to be their calls, as they attempted to find out what they could do to make amends. Mark came over on my lunch break, fixed/reprogrammed the remote and even comped me a free tank of gas for my next fill up. I appreciated his sincere apologies and wanted to update/revise my review as a token of my appreciation.”

What a great example of dedication to earning forgiveness!

Should you actively ask restored customers to edit their negative reviews?

I confess — this setup makes me a bit nervous. I took Twitter poll to gauge sentiment among my followers:

Respondents showed strong support for asking a customer who has been restored to happiness to edit their review. However, I would add a few provisos.

Firstly, not one of the subjects in my study mentioned that the business requested they update their review. Perhaps it went undocumented, but there was absolutely zero suggestion that restored customers had been prompted to re-review the business.

Secondly, I would want to be 100 percent certain that the customer is, indeed, delighted again. Otherwise, you could end up with something truly awful on your review profile, like this:

Suffice it to say, never demand an edited review, and certainly don’t use one as blackmail!

With a nod to the Twitter poll, I think it might be alright to mention you’d appreciate an updated review. I’d be extremely choosy about how you word your request so as not to make the customer feel obligated in any way. And I’d only do so if the customer was truly, sincerely restored to a sense of trust and well-being by the brand.

So what are negative reviews, really?

In so many cases, negative reviews are neither punishment nor the end of the road.

They are, in fact, a form of customer outreach that’s often akin to a cry for help.

Someone trusted your business and was disappointed. Your brand needs to equip itself to ride to the rescue. I was struck by how many reviewers said they felt uncared-for, and impressed by how business owners like this one completely turned things around:

In this light, review platforms are simply a communications medium hosting back-and-forth between customer people and business people. Communicate with a rescue plan and your reputation can “sparkle like diamonds”, too.

Reviews-in-progress

I want to close by mentioning how evident it was to me, upon completing this study, that reviewers take their task seriously. The average word count of the Yelp reviews I surveyed was about 250 words. If half of the 12,584 words I examined expressed disappointment, your brand is empowered to make the other half express forgiveness for mistakes and restoration of trust.

It could well be that the industry term “negative” review is misleading, causing unnecessary fear for local brands and their marketers. What if, instead, we thought of this influential content as “reviews-in-progress,” with the potential for transformation charting the mastery of your brand at customer service.

The short road is that you prevent negative experiences by doubling down on staff hiring and training practices that leave people with nothing to complain about in the entire customer service ecosystem. But re-dubbing online records of inevitable mistakes as “reviews-in-progress” simply means treading a slightly longer road to reputation, retention, and revenue. If your local brand is in business for the long haul, you’ve got this!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[localwebmgmt]

How to Get a Customer to Edit Their Negative Review

Posted by MiriamEllis

“When you forgive, you in no way change the pas — but you sure do change the future.” — Bernard Meltzer

Your brand inhabits a challenging world in which its consumers’ words make up the bulk of your reputation. Negative reviews can feel like the ultimate revenge, punishing dissatisfactory experiences with public shaming, eroded local rankings, and attendant revenue loss. Some business owners become so worried about negative reviews, they head to fora asking if there is any way to opt-out and even querying whether they should simply remove their business listings altogether rather than face the discordant music.

But hang in there. Local business customers may be more forgiving than you think. In fact, your customers may think differently than you might think. 

I’ve just completed a study of consumer behavior as it relates to negative reviews becoming positive ones and I believe this blog post will hold some very welcome surprises for concerned local business owners and their marketers — I know that some of what I learned both surprised and delighted me. In fact, it’s convinced me that, in case after case, negative reviews aren’t what we might think they are at all.

Let’s study this together, with real-world examples, data, a poll, and takeaways that could transform your outlook. 

Stats to start with

Your company winds up with a negative review, and the possibility of a permanently lost customer. Marketing wisdom tells us that it’s more costly to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one happy. But it's actually more far-reaching. The following list of stats tells the story of why you want to do anything you can to get the customer to edit a bad review to reflect more positive sentiment:

57 percent of consumers will only use a business if it has four or more stars — (BrightLocal)

One study showed that ~1.5-star rating increase improved conversions from 10.4 percent to 12.8 percent, representing about 13,000 more leads for the brand. — (Location3)

73.8 percent of customers are either likely or extremely likely to continue doing business with a brand that resolves their complaints. — (GatherUp)

A typical business only hears from four percent of its dissatisfied customers, meaning that the negative reviews you rectify for outspoken people could solve problems for silent ones. — (Ruby Newell-Lerner)

89 percent of consumers read businesses' responses to reviews. — (BrightLocal)

The impact of ratings, reviews, and responses are so clear that every local brand needs to devote resources to better understanding this scenario of sentiment and customer retention.

People power: One reason consumers love reviews

The Better Business Bureau was founded in 1912. The Federal Trade Commission made its debut just two years later. Consumer protections are deemed a necessity, but until the internet put the potential of mass reviews directly into individuals hands, the “little guy” often felt he lacked a truly audible voice when the “big guy” (business) didn’t do right by him.

You can see how local business review platforms have become a bully pulpit, empowering everyday people to make their feelings known to a large audience. And, you can see from reviews, like the one below, the relish with which some consumers embrace that power:

Here, a customer is boasting the belief that they outwitted an entity which would otherwise have defrauded them, if not for the influence of a review platform. That’s our first impression. But if we look a little closer, what we’re really seeing here is that the platform is a communications tool between consumer and brand. The reviewer is saying:

“The business has to do right by me if I put this on Yelp!”

What they’re communicating isn’t nice, and may well be untrue, but it is certainly a message they want to be amplified.

And this is where things get interesting.

Brand power: Full of surprises!

This month, I created a spreadsheet to organize data I was collecting about negative reviews being transformed into positive ones. I searched Yelp for the phrase “edited my review” in cities in every region of the United States and quickly amassed 50 examples for in-depth analysis. In the process, I discovered three pieces of information that could be relevant to your brand.

Surprise #1: Many consumers think of their reviews as living documents

In this first example, we see a customer who left a review after having trouble making an appointment and promising to update their content once they’d experienced actual service. As I combed through consumer sentiment, I was enlightened to discover that many people treat reviews as live objects, updating them over time to reflect evolving experiences. How far do reviewers go with this approach? Just look:

In the above example, the customer has handled their review in four separate updates spanning several days. If you look at the stars, they went from high to low to high again. It’s akin to live updates from a sporting event, and that honestly surprised me to see.

Brands should see this as good news because it means an initial negative review doesn’t have to be set in stone.

Surprise #2: Consumers can be incredibly forgiving

“What really defines you is how you handle the situation after you realize you made a mistake.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself, and this edited review typifies for me the reasonableness I saw in case after case. Far from being the scary, irrational customers that business owners dread, it's clear that many people have the basic understanding that mistakes can happen… and can be rectified. I even saw people forgiving auto dealerships for damaging their cars, once things had been made right.

Surprise #3: Consumers can be self-correcting.

The customer apparently isn’t “always right,” and some of them know it. I saw several instances of customers editing their reviews after realizing that they were the ones who made a mistake. For example, one rather long review saga contained this:

“I didn't realize they had an hourly option so my initial review was 3 stars. However, after the company letting me know they'd be happy to modify my charges since I overlooked the hourly option, it was only fair to edit my review. I thought that was really nice of them. 5 stars and will be using them again in the future.”

When a customer has initially misunderstood a policy or offering and the business in question takes the time to clarify things, fair-minded individuals can feel honor-bound to update their reviews. Many updated reviews contained phrases like “in good conscience” and “in all fairness.”

Overall, in studying this group of reviewers, I found them to be reasonable people, meaning that your brand has (surprising) significant power to work with dissatisfied customers to win back their respect and their business.

How negative reviews become positive: Identifying winning patterns

In my case study, the dominant, overall pattern of negative reviews being transformed into positive ones consisted of these three Rs:

Reach — the customer reaches out with their negative experience, often knowing that, in this day and age, powerful review platforms are a way to reach brands.

Remedy — Some type of fix occurs, whether this results from intervention on the part of the brand, a second positive experience outweighing an initial negative one, or the consumer self-correcting their own misunderstanding.

Restoration — The unhappy customer is restored to the business as a happy one, hopefully, ready to trust the brand for future transactions, and the reputation of the brand is restored by an edited review reflecting better satisfaction.

Now, let’s bucket this general pattern into smaller segments for a more nuanced understanding. Note: There is an overlap in the following information, as some customers experienced multiple positive elements that convinced them to update their reviews.

Key to review transformation:

70 percent mentioned poor service/rude service rectified by a second experience in which staff demonstrated caring.

64 percent mentioned the owner/manager/staff proactively, directly reached out to the customer with a remedy.

32 percent mentioned item replaced or job re-done for free.

20 percent mentioned customer decided to give a business a second chance on their own and was better-pleased by a second experience.

6 percent mentioned customer realized the fault for a misunderstanding was theirs.

From this data, two insights become clear and belong at the core of your reputation strategy:

Poor and rude service seriously fuel negative reviews

This correlates well with the findings of an earlier GatherUp study demonstrating that 57 percent of consumer complaints revolve around customer service and employee behavior. It’s critical to realize that nearly three-quarters of these disasters could be turned around with subsequent excellent service. As one customer in my study phrased it:

“X has since gone above and beyond to resolve the issue and make me feel like they cared.”

Proactive outreach is your negative review repair kit

Well over half of the subjects in my study specifically mentioned that the business had reached out to them in some way. I suspect many instances of such outreach went undocumented in the review updates, so the number may actually be much higher than represented.

Outreach can happen in a variety of ways:

The business may recognize who the customer is and have their name and number on file due to a contract.

The business may not know who the customer is but can provide an owner response to the review that includes the company’s contact information and an earnest request to get in touch.

The business can DM the customer if the negative review is on Yelp.

You’re being given a second chance if you get the customer’s ear a second time. It’s then up to your brand to do everything you can to change their opinion. Here’s one customer’s description of how far a local business was willing to go to get back into his good graces:

“X made every effort to make up for the failed programming and the lack of customer service the night before. My sales rep, his manager and even the finance rep reached out by phone, text and email. I was actually in meetings all morning, watching my phone buzz with what turned out to be their calls, as they attempted to find out what they could do to make amends. Mark came over on my lunch break, fixed/reprogrammed the remote and even comped me a free tank of gas for my next fill up. I appreciated his sincere apologies and wanted to update/revise my review as a token of my appreciation.”

What a great example of dedication to earning forgiveness!

Should you actively ask restored customers to edit their negative reviews?

I confess — this setup makes me a bit nervous. I took Twitter poll to gauge sentiment among my followers:

Respondents showed strong support for asking a customer who has been restored to happiness to edit their review. However, I would add a few provisos.

Firstly, not one of the subjects in my study mentioned that the business requested they update their review. Perhaps it went undocumented, but there was absolutely zero suggestion that restored customers had been prompted to re-review the business.

Secondly, I would want to be 100 percent certain that the customer is, indeed, delighted again. Otherwise, you could end up with something truly awful on your review profile, like this:

Suffice it to say, never demand an edited review, and certainly don’t use one as blackmail!

With a nod to the Twitter poll, I think it might be alright to mention you’d appreciate an updated review. I’d be extremely choosy about how you word your request so as not to make the customer feel obligated in any way. And I’d only do so if the customer was truly, sincerely restored to a sense of trust and well-being by the brand.

So what are negative reviews, really?

In so many cases, negative reviews are neither punishment nor the end of the road.

They are, in fact, a form of customer outreach that’s often akin to a cry for help.

Someone trusted your business and was disappointed. Your brand needs to equip itself to ride to the rescue. I was struck by how many reviewers said they felt uncared-for, and impressed by how business owners like this one completely turned things around:

In this light, review platforms are simply a communications medium hosting back-and-forth between customer people and business people. Communicate with a rescue plan and your reputation can “sparkle like diamonds”, too.

Reviews-in-progress

I want to close by mentioning how evident it was to me, upon completing this study, that reviewers take their task seriously. The average word count of the Yelp reviews I surveyed was about 250 words. If half of the 12,584 words I examined expressed disappointment, your brand is empowered to make the other half express forgiveness for mistakes and restoration of trust.

It could well be that the industry term “negative” review is misleading, causing unnecessary fear for local brands and their marketers. What if, instead, we thought of this influential content as “reviews-in-progress,” with the potential for transformation charting the mastery of your brand at customer service.

The short road is that you prevent negative experiences by doubling down on staff hiring and training practices that leave people with nothing to complain about in the entire customer service ecosystem. But re-dubbing online records of inevitable mistakes as “reviews-in-progress” simply means treading a slightly longer road to reputation, retention, and revenue. If your local brand is in business for the long haul, you’ve got this!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[kjt-lawyers]

How to Get a Customer to Edit Their Negative Review

Posted by MiriamEllis

“When you forgive, you in no way change the pas — but you sure do change the future.” — Bernard Meltzer

Your brand inhabits a challenging world in which its consumers’ words make up the bulk of your reputation. Negative reviews can feel like the ultimate revenge, punishing dissatisfactory experiences with public shaming, eroded local rankings, and attendant revenue loss. Some business owners become so worried about negative reviews, they head to fora asking if there is any way to opt-out and even querying whether they should simply remove their business listings altogether rather than face the discordant music.

But hang in there. Local business customers may be more forgiving than you think. In fact, your customers may think differently than you might think. 

I’ve just completed a study of consumer behavior as it relates to negative reviews becoming positive ones and I believe this blog post will hold some very welcome surprises for concerned local business owners and their marketers — I know that some of what I learned both surprised and delighted me. In fact, it’s convinced me that, in case after case, negative reviews aren’t what we might think they are at all.

Let’s study this together, with real-world examples, data, a poll, and takeaways that could transform your outlook. 

Stats to start with

Your company winds up with a negative review, and the possibility of a permanently lost customer. Marketing wisdom tells us that it’s more costly to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one happy. But it's actually more far-reaching. The following list of stats tells the story of why you want to do anything you can to get the customer to edit a bad review to reflect more positive sentiment:

57 percent of consumers will only use a business if it has four or more stars — (BrightLocal)

One study showed that ~1.5-star rating increase improved conversions from 10.4 percent to 12.8 percent, representing about 13,000 more leads for the brand. — (Location3)

73.8 percent of customers are either likely or extremely likely to continue doing business with a brand that resolves their complaints. — (GatherUp)

A typical business only hears from four percent of its dissatisfied customers, meaning that the negative reviews you rectify for outspoken people could solve problems for silent ones. — (Ruby Newell-Lerner)

89 percent of consumers read businesses' responses to reviews. — (BrightLocal)

The impact of ratings, reviews, and responses are so clear that every local brand needs to devote resources to better understanding this scenario of sentiment and customer retention.

People power: One reason consumers love reviews

The Better Business Bureau was founded in 1912. The Federal Trade Commission made its debut just two years later. Consumer protections are deemed a necessity, but until the internet put the potential of mass reviews directly into individuals hands, the “little guy” often felt he lacked a truly audible voice when the “big guy” (business) didn’t do right by him.

You can see how local business review platforms have become a bully pulpit, empowering everyday people to make their feelings known to a large audience. And, you can see from reviews, like the one below, the relish with which some consumers embrace that power:

Here, a customer is boasting the belief that they outwitted an entity which would otherwise have defrauded them, if not for the influence of a review platform. That’s our first impression. But if we look a little closer, what we’re really seeing here is that the platform is a communications tool between consumer and brand. The reviewer is saying:

“The business has to do right by me if I put this on Yelp!”

What they’re communicating isn’t nice, and may well be untrue, but it is certainly a message they want to be amplified.

And this is where things get interesting.

Brand power: Full of surprises!

This month, I created a spreadsheet to organize data I was collecting about negative reviews being transformed into positive ones. I searched Yelp for the phrase “edited my review” in cities in every region of the United States and quickly amassed 50 examples for in-depth analysis. In the process, I discovered three pieces of information that could be relevant to your brand.

Surprise #1: Many consumers think of their reviews as living documents

In this first example, we see a customer who left a review after having trouble making an appointment and promising to update their content once they’d experienced actual service. As I combed through consumer sentiment, I was enlightened to discover that many people treat reviews as live objects, updating them over time to reflect evolving experiences. How far do reviewers go with this approach? Just look:

In the above example, the customer has handled their review in four separate updates spanning several days. If you look at the stars, they went from high to low to high again. It’s akin to live updates from a sporting event, and that honestly surprised me to see.

Brands should see this as good news because it means an initial negative review doesn’t have to be set in stone.

Surprise #2: Consumers can be incredibly forgiving

“What really defines you is how you handle the situation after you realize you made a mistake.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself, and this edited review typifies for me the reasonableness I saw in case after case. Far from being the scary, irrational customers that business owners dread, it's clear that many people have the basic understanding that mistakes can happen… and can be rectified. I even saw people forgiving auto dealerships for damaging their cars, once things had been made right.

Surprise #3: Consumers can be self-correcting.

The customer apparently isn’t “always right,” and some of them know it. I saw several instances of customers editing their reviews after realizing that they were the ones who made a mistake. For example, one rather long review saga contained this:

“I didn't realize they had an hourly option so my initial review was 3 stars. However, after the company letting me know they'd be happy to modify my charges since I overlooked the hourly option, it was only fair to edit my review. I thought that was really nice of them. 5 stars and will be using them again in the future.”

When a customer has initially misunderstood a policy or offering and the business in question takes the time to clarify things, fair-minded individuals can feel honor-bound to update their reviews. Many updated reviews contained phrases like “in good conscience” and “in all fairness.”

Overall, in studying this group of reviewers, I found them to be reasonable people, meaning that your brand has (surprising) significant power to work with dissatisfied customers to win back their respect and their business.

How negative reviews become positive: Identifying winning patterns

In my case study, the dominant, overall pattern of negative reviews being transformed into positive ones consisted of these three Rs:

Reach — the customer reaches out with their negative experience, often knowing that, in this day and age, powerful review platforms are a way to reach brands.

Remedy — Some type of fix occurs, whether this results from intervention on the part of the brand, a second positive experience outweighing an initial negative one, or the consumer self-correcting their own misunderstanding.

Restoration — The unhappy customer is restored to the business as a happy one, hopefully, ready to trust the brand for future transactions, and the reputation of the brand is restored by an edited review reflecting better satisfaction.

Now, let’s bucket this general pattern into smaller segments for a more nuanced understanding. Note: There is an overlap in the following information, as some customers experienced multiple positive elements that convinced them to update their reviews.

Key to review transformation:

70 percent mentioned poor service/rude service rectified by a second experience in which staff demonstrated caring.

64 percent mentioned the owner/manager/staff proactively, directly reached out to the customer with a remedy.

32 percent mentioned item replaced or job re-done for free.

20 percent mentioned customer decided to give a business a second chance on their own and was better-pleased by a second experience.

6 percent mentioned customer realized the fault for a misunderstanding was theirs.

From this data, two insights become clear and belong at the core of your reputation strategy:

Poor and rude service seriously fuel negative reviews

This correlates well with the findings of an earlier GatherUp study demonstrating that 57 percent of consumer complaints revolve around customer service and employee behavior. It’s critical to realize that nearly three-quarters of these disasters could be turned around with subsequent excellent service. As one customer in my study phrased it:

“X has since gone above and beyond to resolve the issue and make me feel like they cared.”

Proactive outreach is your negative review repair kit

Well over half of the subjects in my study specifically mentioned that the business had reached out to them in some way. I suspect many instances of such outreach went undocumented in the review updates, so the number may actually be much higher than represented.

Outreach can happen in a variety of ways:

The business may recognize who the customer is and have their name and number on file due to a contract.

The business may not know who the customer is but can provide an owner response to the review that includes the company’s contact information and an earnest request to get in touch.

The business can DM the customer if the negative review is on Yelp.

You’re being given a second chance if you get the customer’s ear a second time. It’s then up to your brand to do everything you can to change their opinion. Here’s one customer’s description of how far a local business was willing to go to get back into his good graces:

“X made every effort to make up for the failed programming and the lack of customer service the night before. My sales rep, his manager and even the finance rep reached out by phone, text and email. I was actually in meetings all morning, watching my phone buzz with what turned out to be their calls, as they attempted to find out what they could do to make amends. Mark came over on my lunch break, fixed/reprogrammed the remote and even comped me a free tank of gas for my next fill up. I appreciated his sincere apologies and wanted to update/revise my review as a token of my appreciation.”

What a great example of dedication to earning forgiveness!

Should you actively ask restored customers to edit their negative reviews?

I confess — this setup makes me a bit nervous. I took Twitter poll to gauge sentiment among my followers:

Respondents showed strong support for asking a customer who has been restored to happiness to edit their review. However, I would add a few provisos.

Firstly, not one of the subjects in my study mentioned that the business requested they update their review. Perhaps it went undocumented, but there was absolutely zero suggestion that restored customers had been prompted to re-review the business.

Secondly, I would want to be 100 percent certain that the customer is, indeed, delighted again. Otherwise, you could end up with something truly awful on your review profile, like this:

Suffice it to say, never demand an edited review, and certainly don’t use one as blackmail!

With a nod to the Twitter poll, I think it might be alright to mention you’d appreciate an updated review. I’d be extremely choosy about how you word your request so as not to make the customer feel obligated in any way. And I’d only do so if the customer was truly, sincerely restored to a sense of trust and well-being by the brand.

So what are negative reviews, really?

In so many cases, negative reviews are neither punishment nor the end of the road.

They are, in fact, a form of customer outreach that’s often akin to a cry for help.

Someone trusted your business and was disappointed. Your brand needs to equip itself to ride to the rescue. I was struck by how many reviewers said they felt uncared-for, and impressed by how business owners like this one completely turned things around:

In this light, review platforms are simply a communications medium hosting back-and-forth between customer people and business people. Communicate with a rescue plan and your reputation can “sparkle like diamonds”, too.

Reviews-in-progress

I want to close by mentioning how evident it was to me, upon completing this study, that reviewers take their task seriously. The average word count of the Yelp reviews I surveyed was about 250 words. If half of the 12,584 words I examined expressed disappointment, your brand is empowered to make the other half express forgiveness for mistakes and restoration of trust.

It could well be that the industry term “negative” review is misleading, causing unnecessary fear for local brands and their marketers. What if, instead, we thought of this influential content as “reviews-in-progress,” with the potential for transformation charting the mastery of your brand at customer service.

The short road is that you prevent negative experiences by doubling down on staff hiring and training practices that leave people with nothing to complain about in the entire customer service ecosystem. But re-dubbing online records of inevitable mistakes as “reviews-in-progress” simply means treading a slightly longer road to reputation, retention, and revenue. If your local brand is in business for the long haul, you’ve got this!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[epackingvietnam]

How to Get a Customer to Edit Their Negative Review

Posted by MiriamEllis

“When you forgive, you in no way change the pas — but you sure do change the future.” — Bernard Meltzer

Your brand inhabits a challenging world in which its consumers’ words make up the bulk of your reputation. Negative reviews can feel like the ultimate revenge, punishing dissatisfactory experiences with public shaming, eroded local rankings, and attendant revenue loss. Some business owners become so worried about negative reviews, they head to fora asking if there is any way to opt-out and even querying whether they should simply remove their business listings altogether rather than face the discordant music.

But hang in there. Local business customers may be more forgiving than you think. In fact, your customers may think differently than you might think. 

I’ve just completed a study of consumer behavior as it relates to negative reviews becoming positive ones and I believe this blog post will hold some very welcome surprises for concerned local business owners and their marketers — I know that some of what I learned both surprised and delighted me. In fact, it’s convinced me that, in case after case, negative reviews aren’t what we might think they are at all.

Let’s study this together, with real-world examples, data, a poll, and takeaways that could transform your outlook. 

Stats to start with

Your company winds up with a negative review, and the possibility of a permanently lost customer. Marketing wisdom tells us that it’s more costly to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one happy. But it's actually more far-reaching. The following list of stats tells the story of why you want to do anything you can to get the customer to edit a bad review to reflect more positive sentiment:

57 percent of consumers will only use a business if it has four or more stars — (BrightLocal)

One study showed that ~1.5-star rating increase improved conversions from 10.4 percent to 12.8 percent, representing about 13,000 more leads for the brand. — (Location3)

73.8 percent of customers are either likely or extremely likely to continue doing business with a brand that resolves their complaints. — (GatherUp)

A typical business only hears from four percent of its dissatisfied customers, meaning that the negative reviews you rectify for outspoken people could solve problems for silent ones. — (Ruby Newell-Lerner)

89 percent of consumers read businesses' responses to reviews. — (BrightLocal)

The impact of ratings, reviews, and responses are so clear that every local brand needs to devote resources to better understanding this scenario of sentiment and customer retention.

People power: One reason consumers love reviews

The Better Business Bureau was founded in 1912. The Federal Trade Commission made its debut just two years later. Consumer protections are deemed a necessity, but until the internet put the potential of mass reviews directly into individuals hands, the “little guy” often felt he lacked a truly audible voice when the “big guy” (business) didn’t do right by him.

You can see how local business review platforms have become a bully pulpit, empowering everyday people to make their feelings known to a large audience. And, you can see from reviews, like the one below, the relish with which some consumers embrace that power:

Here, a customer is boasting the belief that they outwitted an entity which would otherwise have defrauded them, if not for the influence of a review platform. That’s our first impression. But if we look a little closer, what we’re really seeing here is that the platform is a communications tool between consumer and brand. The reviewer is saying:

“The business has to do right by me if I put this on Yelp!”

What they’re communicating isn’t nice, and may well be untrue, but it is certainly a message they want to be amplified.

And this is where things get interesting.

Brand power: Full of surprises!

This month, I created a spreadsheet to organize data I was collecting about negative reviews being transformed into positive ones. I searched Yelp for the phrase “edited my review” in cities in every region of the United States and quickly amassed 50 examples for in-depth analysis. In the process, I discovered three pieces of information that could be relevant to your brand.

Surprise #1: Many consumers think of their reviews as living documents

In this first example, we see a customer who left a review after having trouble making an appointment and promising to update their content once they’d experienced actual service. As I combed through consumer sentiment, I was enlightened to discover that many people treat reviews as live objects, updating them over time to reflect evolving experiences. How far do reviewers go with this approach? Just look:

In the above example, the customer has handled their review in four separate updates spanning several days. If you look at the stars, they went from high to low to high again. It’s akin to live updates from a sporting event, and that honestly surprised me to see.

Brands should see this as good news because it means an initial negative review doesn’t have to be set in stone.

Surprise #2: Consumers can be incredibly forgiving

“What really defines you is how you handle the situation after you realize you made a mistake.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself, and this edited review typifies for me the reasonableness I saw in case after case. Far from being the scary, irrational customers that business owners dread, it's clear that many people have the basic understanding that mistakes can happen… and can be rectified. I even saw people forgiving auto dealerships for damaging their cars, once things had been made right.

Surprise #3: Consumers can be self-correcting.

The customer apparently isn’t “always right,” and some of them know it. I saw several instances of customers editing their reviews after realizing that they were the ones who made a mistake. For example, one rather long review saga contained this:

“I didn't realize they had an hourly option so my initial review was 3 stars. However, after the company letting me know they'd be happy to modify my charges since I overlooked the hourly option, it was only fair to edit my review. I thought that was really nice of them. 5 stars and will be using them again in the future.”

When a customer has initially misunderstood a policy or offering and the business in question takes the time to clarify things, fair-minded individuals can feel honor-bound to update their reviews. Many updated reviews contained phrases like “in good conscience” and “in all fairness.”

Overall, in studying this group of reviewers, I found them to be reasonable people, meaning that your brand has (surprising) significant power to work with dissatisfied customers to win back their respect and their business.

How negative reviews become positive: Identifying winning patterns

In my case study, the dominant, overall pattern of negative reviews being transformed into positive ones consisted of these three Rs:

Reach — the customer reaches out with their negative experience, often knowing that, in this day and age, powerful review platforms are a way to reach brands.

Remedy — Some type of fix occurs, whether this results from intervention on the part of the brand, a second positive experience outweighing an initial negative one, or the consumer self-correcting their own misunderstanding.

Restoration — The unhappy customer is restored to the business as a happy one, hopefully, ready to trust the brand for future transactions, and the reputation of the brand is restored by an edited review reflecting better satisfaction.

Now, let’s bucket this general pattern into smaller segments for a more nuanced understanding. Note: There is an overlap in the following information, as some customers experienced multiple positive elements that convinced them to update their reviews.

Key to review transformation:

70 percent mentioned poor service/rude service rectified by a second experience in which staff demonstrated caring.

64 percent mentioned the owner/manager/staff proactively, directly reached out to the customer with a remedy.

32 percent mentioned item replaced or job re-done for free.

20 percent mentioned customer decided to give a business a second chance on their own and was better-pleased by a second experience.

6 percent mentioned customer realized the fault for a misunderstanding was theirs.

From this data, two insights become clear and belong at the core of your reputation strategy:

Poor and rude service seriously fuel negative reviews

This correlates well with the findings of an earlier GatherUp study demonstrating that 57 percent of consumer complaints revolve around customer service and employee behavior. It’s critical to realize that nearly three-quarters of these disasters could be turned around with subsequent excellent service. As one customer in my study phrased it:

“X has since gone above and beyond to resolve the issue and make me feel like they cared.”

Proactive outreach is your negative review repair kit

Well over half of the subjects in my study specifically mentioned that the business had reached out to them in some way. I suspect many instances of such outreach went undocumented in the review updates, so the number may actually be much higher than represented.

Outreach can happen in a variety of ways:

The business may recognize who the customer is and have their name and number on file due to a contract.

The business may not know who the customer is but can provide an owner response to the review that includes the company’s contact information and an earnest request to get in touch.

The business can DM the customer if the negative review is on Yelp.

You’re being given a second chance if you get the customer’s ear a second time. It’s then up to your brand to do everything you can to change their opinion. Here’s one customer’s description of how far a local business was willing to go to get back into his good graces:

“X made every effort to make up for the failed programming and the lack of customer service the night before. My sales rep, his manager and even the finance rep reached out by phone, text and email. I was actually in meetings all morning, watching my phone buzz with what turned out to be their calls, as they attempted to find out what they could do to make amends. Mark came over on my lunch break, fixed/reprogrammed the remote and even comped me a free tank of gas for my next fill up. I appreciated his sincere apologies and wanted to update/revise my review as a token of my appreciation.”

What a great example of dedication to earning forgiveness!

Should you actively ask restored customers to edit their negative reviews?

I confess — this setup makes me a bit nervous. I took Twitter poll to gauge sentiment among my followers:

Respondents showed strong support for asking a customer who has been restored to happiness to edit their review. However, I would add a few provisos.

Firstly, not one of the subjects in my study mentioned that the business requested they update their review. Perhaps it went undocumented, but there was absolutely zero suggestion that restored customers had been prompted to re-review the business.

Secondly, I would want to be 100 percent certain that the customer is, indeed, delighted again. Otherwise, you could end up with something truly awful on your review profile, like this:

Suffice it to say, never demand an edited review, and certainly don’t use one as blackmail!

With a nod to the Twitter poll, I think it might be alright to mention you’d appreciate an updated review. I’d be extremely choosy about how you word your request so as not to make the customer feel obligated in any way. And I’d only do so if the customer was truly, sincerely restored to a sense of trust and well-being by the brand.

So what are negative reviews, really?

In so many cases, negative reviews are neither punishment nor the end of the road.

They are, in fact, a form of customer outreach that’s often akin to a cry for help.

Someone trusted your business and was disappointed. Your brand needs to equip itself to ride to the rescue. I was struck by how many reviewers said they felt uncared-for, and impressed by how business owners like this one completely turned things around:

In this light, review platforms are simply a communications medium hosting back-and-forth between customer people and business people. Communicate with a rescue plan and your reputation can “sparkle like diamonds”, too.

Reviews-in-progress

I want to close by mentioning how evident it was to me, upon completing this study, that reviewers take their task seriously. The average word count of the Yelp reviews I surveyed was about 250 words. If half of the 12,584 words I examined expressed disappointment, your brand is empowered to make the other half express forgiveness for mistakes and restoration of trust.

It could well be that the industry term “negative” review is misleading, causing unnecessary fear for local brands and their marketers. What if, instead, we thought of this influential content as “reviews-in-progress,” with the potential for transformation charting the mastery of your brand at customer service.

The short road is that you prevent negative experiences by doubling down on staff hiring and training practices that leave people with nothing to complain about in the entire customer service ecosystem. But re-dubbing online records of inevitable mistakes as “reviews-in-progress” simply means treading a slightly longer road to reputation, retention, and revenue. If your local brand is in business for the long haul, you’ve got this!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

#túi_giấy_epacking_việt_nam #túi_giấy_epacking #in_túi_giấy_giá_rẻ #in_túi_giấy #epackingvietnam #tuigiayepacking

[paulineberry]

How to Get a Customer to Edit Their Negative Review

Posted by MiriamEllis

“When you forgive, you in no way change the pas — but you sure do change the future.” — Bernard Meltzer

Your brand inhabits a challenging world in which its consumers’ words make up the bulk of your reputation. Negative reviews can feel like the ultimate revenge, punishing dissatisfactory experiences with public shaming, eroded local rankings, and attendant revenue loss. Some business owners become so worried about negative reviews, they head to fora asking if there is any way to opt-out and even querying whether they should simply remove their business listings altogether rather than face the discordant music.

But hang in there. Local business customers may be more forgiving than you think. In fact, your customers may think differently than you might think. 

I’ve just completed a study of consumer behavior as it relates to negative reviews becoming positive ones and I believe this blog post will hold some very welcome surprises for concerned local business owners and their marketers — I know that some of what I learned both surprised and delighted me. In fact, it’s convinced me that, in case after case, negative reviews aren’t what we might think they are at all.

Let’s study this together, with real-world examples, data, a poll, and takeaways that could transform your outlook. 

Stats to start with

Your company winds up with a negative review, and the possibility of a permanently lost customer. Marketing wisdom tells us that it’s more costly to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one happy. But it's actually more far-reaching. The following list of stats tells the story of why you want to do anything you can to get the customer to edit a bad review to reflect more positive sentiment:

57 percent of consumers will only use a business if it has four or more stars — (BrightLocal)

One study showed that ~1.5-star rating increase improved conversions from 10.4 percent to 12.8 percent, representing about 13,000 more leads for the brand. — (Location3)

73.8 percent of customers are either likely or extremely likely to continue doing business with a brand that resolves their complaints. — (GatherUp)

A typical business only hears from four percent of its dissatisfied customers, meaning that the negative reviews you rectify for outspoken people could solve problems for silent ones. — (Ruby Newell-Lerner)

89 percent of consumers read businesses' responses to reviews. — (BrightLocal)

The impact of ratings, reviews, and responses are so clear that every local brand needs to devote resources to better understanding this scenario of sentiment and customer retention.

People power: One reason consumers love reviews

The Better Business Bureau was founded in 1912. The Federal Trade Commission made its debut just two years later. Consumer protections are deemed a necessity, but until the internet put the potential of mass reviews directly into individuals hands, the “little guy” often felt he lacked a truly audible voice when the “big guy” (business) didn’t do right by him.

You can see how local business review platforms have become a bully pulpit, empowering everyday people to make their feelings known to a large audience. And, you can see from reviews, like the one below, the relish with which some consumers embrace that power:

Here, a customer is boasting the belief that they outwitted an entity which would otherwise have defrauded them, if not for the influence of a review platform. That’s our first impression. But if we look a little closer, what we’re really seeing here is that the platform is a communications tool between consumer and brand. The reviewer is saying:

“The business has to do right by me if I put this on Yelp!”

What they’re communicating isn’t nice, and may well be untrue, but it is certainly a message they want to be amplified.

And this is where things get interesting.

Brand power: Full of surprises!

This month, I created a spreadsheet to organize data I was collecting about negative reviews being transformed into positive ones. I searched Yelp for the phrase “edited my review” in cities in every region of the United States and quickly amassed 50 examples for in-depth analysis. In the process, I discovered three pieces of information that could be relevant to your brand.

Surprise #1: Many consumers think of their reviews as living documents

In this first example, we see a customer who left a review after having trouble making an appointment and promising to update their content once they’d experienced actual service. As I combed through consumer sentiment, I was enlightened to discover that many people treat reviews as live objects, updating them over time to reflect evolving experiences. How far do reviewers go with this approach? Just look:

In the above example, the customer has handled their review in four separate updates spanning several days. If you look at the stars, they went from high to low to high again. It’s akin to live updates from a sporting event, and that honestly surprised me to see.

Brands should see this as good news because it means an initial negative review doesn’t have to be set in stone.

Surprise #2: Consumers can be incredibly forgiving

“What really defines you is how you handle the situation after you realize you made a mistake.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself, and this edited review typifies for me the reasonableness I saw in case after case. Far from being the scary, irrational customers that business owners dread, it's clear that many people have the basic understanding that mistakes can happen… and can be rectified. I even saw people forgiving auto dealerships for damaging their cars, once things had been made right.

Surprise #3: Consumers can be self-correcting.

The customer apparently isn’t “always right,” and some of them know it. I saw several instances of customers editing their reviews after realizing that they were the ones who made a mistake. For example, one rather long review saga contained this:

“I didn't realize they had an hourly option so my initial review was 3 stars. However, after the company letting me know they'd be happy to modify my charges since I overlooked the hourly option, it was only fair to edit my review. I thought that was really nice of them. 5 stars and will be using them again in the future.”

When a customer has initially misunderstood a policy or offering and the business in question takes the time to clarify things, fair-minded individuals can feel honor-bound to update their reviews. Many updated reviews contained phrases like “in good conscience” and “in all fairness.”

Overall, in studying this group of reviewers, I found them to be reasonable people, meaning that your brand has (surprising) significant power to work with dissatisfied customers to win back their respect and their business.

How negative reviews become positive: Identifying winning patterns

In my case study, the dominant, overall pattern of negative reviews being transformed into positive ones consisted of these three Rs:

Reach — the customer reaches out with their negative experience, often knowing that, in this day and age, powerful review platforms are a way to reach brands.

Remedy — Some type of fix occurs, whether this results from intervention on the part of the brand, a second positive experience outweighing an initial negative one, or the consumer self-correcting their own misunderstanding.

Restoration — The unhappy customer is restored to the business as a happy one, hopefully, ready to trust the brand for future transactions, and the reputation of the brand is restored by an edited review reflecting better satisfaction.

Now, let’s bucket this general pattern into smaller segments for a more nuanced understanding. Note: There is an overlap in the following information, as some customers experienced multiple positive elements that convinced them to update their reviews.

Key to review transformation:

70 percent mentioned poor service/rude service rectified by a second experience in which staff demonstrated caring.

64 percent mentioned the owner/manager/staff proactively, directly reached out to the customer with a remedy.

32 percent mentioned item replaced or job re-done for free.

20 percent mentioned customer decided to give a business a second chance on their own and was better-pleased by a second experience.

6 percent mentioned customer realized the fault for a misunderstanding was theirs.

From this data, two insights become clear and belong at the core of your reputation strategy:

Poor and rude service seriously fuel negative reviews

This correlates well with the findings of an earlier GatherUp study demonstrating that 57 percent of consumer complaints revolve around customer service and employee behavior. It’s critical to realize that nearly three-quarters of these disasters could be turned around with subsequent excellent service. As one customer in my study phrased it:

“X has since gone above and beyond to resolve the issue and make me feel like they cared.”

Proactive outreach is your negative review repair kit

Well over half of the subjects in my study specifically mentioned that the business had reached out to them in some way. I suspect many instances of such outreach went undocumented in the review updates, so the number may actually be much higher than represented.

Outreach can happen in a variety of ways:

The business may recognize who the customer is and have their name and number on file due to a contract.

The business may not know who the customer is but can provide an owner response to the review that includes the company’s contact information and an earnest request to get in touch.

The business can DM the customer if the negative review is on Yelp.

You’re being given a second chance if you get the customer’s ear a second time. It’s then up to your brand to do everything you can to change their opinion. Here’s one customer’s description of how far a local business was willing to go to get back into his good graces:

“X made every effort to make up for the failed programming and the lack of customer service the night before. My sales rep, his manager and even the finance rep reached out by phone, text and email. I was actually in meetings all morning, watching my phone buzz with what turned out to be their calls, as they attempted to find out what they could do to make amends. Mark came over on my lunch break, fixed/reprogrammed the remote and even comped me a free tank of gas for my next fill up. I appreciated his sincere apologies and wanted to update/revise my review as a token of my appreciation.”

What a great example of dedication to earning forgiveness!

Should you actively ask restored customers to edit their negative reviews?

I confess — this setup makes me a bit nervous. I took Twitter poll to gauge sentiment among my followers:

Respondents showed strong support for asking a customer who has been restored to happiness to edit their review. However, I would add a few provisos.

Firstly, not one of the subjects in my study mentioned that the business requested they update their review. Perhaps it went undocumented, but there was absolutely zero suggestion that restored customers had been prompted to re-review the business.

Secondly, I would want to be 100 percent certain that the customer is, indeed, delighted again. Otherwise, you could end up with something truly awful on your review profile, like this:

Suffice it to say, never demand an edited review, and certainly don’t use one as blackmail!

With a nod to the Twitter poll, I think it might be alright to mention you’d appreciate an updated review. I’d be extremely choosy about how you word your request so as not to make the customer feel obligated in any way. And I’d only do so if the customer was truly, sincerely restored to a sense of trust and well-being by the brand.

So what are negative reviews, really?

In so many cases, negative reviews are neither punishment nor the end of the road.

They are, in fact, a form of customer outreach that’s often akin to a cry for help.

Someone trusted your business and was disappointed. Your brand needs to equip itself to ride to the rescue. I was struck by how many reviewers said they felt uncared-for, and impressed by how business owners like this one completely turned things around:

In this light, review platforms are simply a communications medium hosting back-and-forth between customer people and business people. Communicate with a rescue plan and your reputation can “sparkle like diamonds”, too.

Reviews-in-progress

I want to close by mentioning how evident it was to me, upon completing this study, that reviewers take their task seriously. The average word count of the Yelp reviews I surveyed was about 250 words. If half of the 12,584 words I examined expressed disappointment, your brand is empowered to make the other half express forgiveness for mistakes and restoration of trust.

It could well be that the industry term “negative” review is misleading, causing unnecessary fear for local brands and their marketers. What if, instead, we thought of this influential content as “reviews-in-progress,” with the potential for transformation charting the mastery of your brand at customer service.

The short road is that you prevent negative experiences by doubling down on staff hiring and training practices that leave people with nothing to complain about in the entire customer service ecosystem. But re-dubbing online records of inevitable mistakes as “reviews-in-progress” simply means treading a slightly longer road to reputation, retention, and revenue. If your local brand is in business for the long haul, you’ve got this!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[bfxenon]

How to Get a Customer to Edit Their Negative Review

Posted by MiriamEllis

“When you forgive, you in no way change the pas — but you sure do change the future.” — Bernard Meltzer

Your brand inhabits a challenging world in which its consumers’ words make up the bulk of your reputation. Negative reviews can feel like the ultimate revenge, punishing dissatisfactory experiences with public shaming, eroded local rankings, and attendant revenue loss. Some business owners become so worried about negative reviews, they head to fora asking if there is any way to opt-out and even querying whether they should simply remove their business listings altogether rather than face the discordant music.

But hang in there. Local business customers may be more forgiving than you think. In fact, your customers may think differently than you might think. 

I’ve just completed a study of consumer behavior as it relates to negative reviews becoming positive ones and I believe this blog post will hold some very welcome surprises for concerned local business owners and their marketers — I know that some of what I learned both surprised and delighted me. In fact, it’s convinced me that, in case after case, negative reviews aren’t what we might think they are at all.

Let’s study this together, with real-world examples, data, a poll, and takeaways that could transform your outlook. 

Stats to start with

Your company winds up with a negative review, and the possibility of a permanently lost customer. Marketing wisdom tells us that it’s more costly to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one happy. But it's actually more far-reaching. The following list of stats tells the story of why you want to do anything you can to get the customer to edit a bad review to reflect more positive sentiment:

57 percent of consumers will only use a business if it has four or more stars — (BrightLocal)

One study showed that ~1.5-star rating increase improved conversions from 10.4 percent to 12.8 percent, representing about 13,000 more leads for the brand. — (Location3)

73.8 percent of customers are either likely or extremely likely to continue doing business with a brand that resolves their complaints. — (GatherUp)

A typical business only hears from four percent of its dissatisfied customers, meaning that the negative reviews you rectify for outspoken people could solve problems for silent ones. — (Ruby Newell-Lerner)

89 percent of consumers read businesses' responses to reviews. — (BrightLocal)

The impact of ratings, reviews, and responses are so clear that every local brand needs to devote resources to better understanding this scenario of sentiment and customer retention.

People power: One reason consumers love reviews

The Better Business Bureau was founded in 1912. The Federal Trade Commission made its debut just two years later. Consumer protections are deemed a necessity, but until the internet put the potential of mass reviews directly into individuals hands, the “little guy” often felt he lacked a truly audible voice when the “big guy” (business) didn’t do right by him.

You can see how local business review platforms have become a bully pulpit, empowering everyday people to make their feelings known to a large audience. And, you can see from reviews, like the one below, the relish with which some consumers embrace that power:

Here, a customer is boasting the belief that they outwitted an entity which would otherwise have defrauded them, if not for the influence of a review platform. That’s our first impression. But if we look a little closer, what we’re really seeing here is that the platform is a communications tool between consumer and brand. The reviewer is saying:

“The business has to do right by me if I put this on Yelp!”

What they’re communicating isn’t nice, and may well be untrue, but it is certainly a message they want to be amplified.

And this is where things get interesting.

Brand power: Full of surprises!

This month, I created a spreadsheet to organize data I was collecting about negative reviews being transformed into positive ones. I searched Yelp for the phrase “edited my review” in cities in every region of the United States and quickly amassed 50 examples for in-depth analysis. In the process, I discovered three pieces of information that could be relevant to your brand.

Surprise #1: Many consumers think of their reviews as living documents

In this first example, we see a customer who left a review after having trouble making an appointment and promising to update their content once they’d experienced actual service. As I combed through consumer sentiment, I was enlightened to discover that many people treat reviews as live objects, updating them over time to reflect evolving experiences. How far do reviewers go with this approach? Just look:

In the above example, the customer has handled their review in four separate updates spanning several days. If you look at the stars, they went from high to low to high again. It’s akin to live updates from a sporting event, and that honestly surprised me to see.

Brands should see this as good news because it means an initial negative review doesn’t have to be set in stone.

Surprise #2: Consumers can be incredibly forgiving

“What really defines you is how you handle the situation after you realize you made a mistake.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself, and this edited review typifies for me the reasonableness I saw in case after case. Far from being the scary, irrational customers that business owners dread, it's clear that many people have the basic understanding that mistakes can happen… and can be rectified. I even saw people forgiving auto dealerships for damaging their cars, once things had been made right.

Surprise #3: Consumers can be self-correcting.

The customer apparently isn’t “always right,” and some of them know it. I saw several instances of customers editing their reviews after realizing that they were the ones who made a mistake. For example, one rather long review saga contained this:

“I didn't realize they had an hourly option so my initial review was 3 stars. However, after the company letting me know they'd be happy to modify my charges since I overlooked the hourly option, it was only fair to edit my review. I thought that was really nice of them. 5 stars and will be using them again in the future.”

When a customer has initially misunderstood a policy or offering and the business in question takes the time to clarify things, fair-minded individuals can feel honor-bound to update their reviews. Many updated reviews contained phrases like “in good conscience” and “in all fairness.”

Overall, in studying this group of reviewers, I found them to be reasonable people, meaning that your brand has (surprising) significant power to work with dissatisfied customers to win back their respect and their business.

How negative reviews become positive: Identifying winning patterns

In my case study, the dominant, overall pattern of negative reviews being transformed into positive ones consisted of these three Rs:

Reach — the customer reaches out with their negative experience, often knowing that, in this day and age, powerful review platforms are a way to reach brands.

Remedy — Some type of fix occurs, whether this results from intervention on the part of the brand, a second positive experience outweighing an initial negative one, or the consumer self-correcting their own misunderstanding.

Restoration — The unhappy customer is restored to the business as a happy one, hopefully, ready to trust the brand for future transactions, and the reputation of the brand is restored by an edited review reflecting better satisfaction.

Now, let’s bucket this general pattern into smaller segments for a more nuanced understanding. Note: There is an overlap in the following information, as some customers experienced multiple positive elements that convinced them to update their reviews.

Key to review transformation:

70 percent mentioned poor service/rude service rectified by a second experience in which staff demonstrated caring.

64 percent mentioned the owner/manager/staff proactively, directly reached out to the customer with a remedy.

32 percent mentioned item replaced or job re-done for free.

20 percent mentioned customer decided to give a business a second chance on their own and was better-pleased by a second experience.

6 percent mentioned customer realized the fault for a misunderstanding was theirs.

From this data, two insights become clear and belong at the core of your reputation strategy:

Poor and rude service seriously fuel negative reviews

This correlates well with the findings of an earlier GatherUp study demonstrating that 57 percent of consumer complaints revolve around customer service and employee behavior. It’s critical to realize that nearly three-quarters of these disasters could be turned around with subsequent excellent service. As one customer in my study phrased it:

“X has since gone above and beyond to resolve the issue and make me feel like they cared.”

Proactive outreach is your negative review repair kit

Well over half of the subjects in my study specifically mentioned that the business had reached out to them in some way. I suspect many instances of such outreach went undocumented in the review updates, so the number may actually be much higher than represented.

Outreach can happen in a variety of ways:

The business may recognize who the customer is and have their name and number on file due to a contract.

The business may not know who the customer is but can provide an owner response to the review that includes the company’s contact information and an earnest request to get in touch.

The business can DM the customer if the negative review is on Yelp.

You’re being given a second chance if you get the customer’s ear a second time. It’s then up to your brand to do everything you can to change their opinion. Here’s one customer’s description of how far a local business was willing to go to get back into his good graces:

“X made every effort to make up for the failed programming and the lack of customer service the night before. My sales rep, his manager and even the finance rep reached out by phone, text and email. I was actually in meetings all morning, watching my phone buzz with what turned out to be their calls, as they attempted to find out what they could do to make amends. Mark came over on my lunch break, fixed/reprogrammed the remote and even comped me a free tank of gas for my next fill up. I appreciated his sincere apologies and wanted to update/revise my review as a token of my appreciation.”

What a great example of dedication to earning forgiveness!

Should you actively ask restored customers to edit their negative reviews?

I confess — this setup makes me a bit nervous. I took Twitter poll to gauge sentiment among my followers:

Respondents showed strong support for asking a customer who has been restored to happiness to edit their review. However, I would add a few provisos.

Firstly, not one of the subjects in my study mentioned that the business requested they update their review. Perhaps it went undocumented, but there was absolutely zero suggestion that restored customers had been prompted to re-review the business.

Secondly, I would want to be 100 percent certain that the customer is, indeed, delighted again. Otherwise, you could end up with something truly awful on your review profile, like this:

Suffice it to say, never demand an edited review, and certainly don’t use one as blackmail!

With a nod to the Twitter poll, I think it might be alright to mention you’d appreciate an updated review. I’d be extremely choosy about how you word your request so as not to make the customer feel obligated in any way. And I’d only do so if the customer was truly, sincerely restored to a sense of trust and well-being by the brand.

So what are negative reviews, really?

In so many cases, negative reviews are neither punishment nor the end of the road.

They are, in fact, a form of customer outreach that’s often akin to a cry for help.

Someone trusted your business and was disappointed. Your brand needs to equip itself to ride to the rescue. I was struck by how many reviewers said they felt uncared-for, and impressed by how business owners like this one completely turned things around:

In this light, review platforms are simply a communications medium hosting back-and-forth between customer people and business people. Communicate with a rescue plan and your reputation can “sparkle like diamonds”, too.

Reviews-in-progress

I want to close by mentioning how evident it was to me, upon completing this study, that reviewers take their task seriously. The average word count of the Yelp reviews I surveyed was about 250 words. If half of the 12,584 words I examined expressed disappointment, your brand is empowered to make the other half express forgiveness for mistakes and restoration of trust.

It could well be that the industry term “negative” review is misleading, causing unnecessary fear for local brands and their marketers. What if, instead, we thought of this influential content as “reviews-in-progress,” with the potential for transformation charting the mastery of your brand at customer service.

The short road is that you prevent negative experiences by doubling down on staff hiring and training practices that leave people with nothing to complain about in the entire customer service ecosystem. But re-dubbing online records of inevitable mistakes as “reviews-in-progress” simply means treading a slightly longer road to reputation, retention, and revenue. If your local brand is in business for the long haul, you’ve got this!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[gamebazu]

How to Get a Customer to Edit Their Negative Review

Posted by MiriamEllis

“When you forgive, you in no way change the pas — but you sure do change the future.” — Bernard Meltzer

Your brand inhabits a challenging world in which its consumers’ words make up the bulk of your reputation. Negative reviews can feel like the ultimate revenge, punishing dissatisfactory experiences with public shaming, eroded local rankings, and attendant revenue loss. Some business owners become so worried about negative reviews, they head to fora asking if there is any way to opt-out and even querying whether they should simply remove their business listings altogether rather than face the discordant music.

But hang in there. Local business customers may be more forgiving than you think. In fact, your customers may think differently than you might think. 

I’ve just completed a study of consumer behavior as it relates to negative reviews becoming positive ones and I believe this blog post will hold some very welcome surprises for concerned local business owners and their marketers — I know that some of what I learned both surprised and delighted me. In fact, it’s convinced me that, in case after case, negative reviews aren’t what we might think they are at all.

Let’s study this together, with real-world examples, data, a poll, and takeaways that could transform your outlook. 

Stats to start with

Your company winds up with a negative review, and the possibility of a permanently lost customer. Marketing wisdom tells us that it’s more costly to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one happy. But it's actually more far-reaching. The following list of stats tells the story of why you want to do anything you can to get the customer to edit a bad review to reflect more positive sentiment:

57 percent of consumers will only use a business if it has four or more stars — (BrightLocal)

One study showed that ~1.5-star rating increase improved conversions from 10.4 percent to 12.8 percent, representing about 13,000 more leads for the brand. — (Location3)

73.8 percent of customers are either likely or extremely likely to continue doing business with a brand that resolves their complaints. — (GatherUp)

A typical business only hears from four percent of its dissatisfied customers, meaning that the negative reviews you rectify for outspoken people could solve problems for silent ones. — (Ruby Newell-Lerner)

89 percent of consumers read businesses' responses to reviews. — (BrightLocal)

The impact of ratings, reviews, and responses are so clear that every local brand needs to devote resources to better understanding this scenario of sentiment and customer retention.

People power: One reason consumers love reviews

The Better Business Bureau was founded in 1912. The Federal Trade Commission made its debut just two years later. Consumer protections are deemed a necessity, but until the internet put the potential of mass reviews directly into individuals hands, the “little guy” often felt he lacked a truly audible voice when the “big guy” (business) didn’t do right by him.

You can see how local business review platforms have become a bully pulpit, empowering everyday people to make their feelings known to a large audience. And, you can see from reviews, like the one below, the relish with which some consumers embrace that power:

Here, a customer is boasting the belief that they outwitted an entity which would otherwise have defrauded them, if not for the influence of a review platform. That’s our first impression. But if we look a little closer, what we’re really seeing here is that the platform is a communications tool between consumer and brand. The reviewer is saying:

“The business has to do right by me if I put this on Yelp!”

What they’re communicating isn’t nice, and may well be untrue, but it is certainly a message they want to be amplified.

And this is where things get interesting.

Brand power: Full of surprises!

This month, I created a spreadsheet to organize data I was collecting about negative reviews being transformed into positive ones. I searched Yelp for the phrase “edited my review” in cities in every region of the United States and quickly amassed 50 examples for in-depth analysis. In the process, I discovered three pieces of information that could be relevant to your brand.

Surprise #1: Many consumers think of their reviews as living documents

In this first example, we see a customer who left a review after having trouble making an appointment and promising to update their content once they’d experienced actual service. As I combed through consumer sentiment, I was enlightened to discover that many people treat reviews as live objects, updating them over time to reflect evolving experiences. How far do reviewers go with this approach? Just look:

In the above example, the customer has handled their review in four separate updates spanning several days. If you look at the stars, they went from high to low to high again. It’s akin to live updates from a sporting event, and that honestly surprised me to see.

Brands should see this as good news because it means an initial negative review doesn’t have to be set in stone.

Surprise #2: Consumers can be incredibly forgiving

“What really defines you is how you handle the situation after you realize you made a mistake.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself, and this edited review typifies for me the reasonableness I saw in case after case. Far from being the scary, irrational customers that business owners dread, it's clear that many people have the basic understanding that mistakes can happen… and can be rectified. I even saw people forgiving auto dealerships for damaging their cars, once things had been made right.

Surprise #3: Consumers can be self-correcting.

The customer apparently isn’t “always right,” and some of them know it. I saw several instances of customers editing their reviews after realizing that they were the ones who made a mistake. For example, one rather long review saga contained this:

“I didn't realize they had an hourly option so my initial review was 3 stars. However, after the company letting me know they'd be happy to modify my charges since I overlooked the hourly option, it was only fair to edit my review. I thought that was really nice of them. 5 stars and will be using them again in the future.”

When a customer has initially misunderstood a policy or offering and the business in question takes the time to clarify things, fair-minded individuals can feel honor-bound to update their reviews. Many updated reviews contained phrases like “in good conscience” and “in all fairness.”

Overall, in studying this group of reviewers, I found them to be reasonable people, meaning that your brand has (surprising) significant power to work with dissatisfied customers to win back their respect and their business.

How negative reviews become positive: Identifying winning patterns

In my case study, the dominant, overall pattern of negative reviews being transformed into positive ones consisted of these three Rs:

Reach — the customer reaches out with their negative experience, often knowing that, in this day and age, powerful review platforms are a way to reach brands.

Remedy — Some type of fix occurs, whether this results from intervention on the part of the brand, a second positive experience outweighing an initial negative one, or the consumer self-correcting their own misunderstanding.

Restoration — The unhappy customer is restored to the business as a happy one, hopefully, ready to trust the brand for future transactions, and the reputation of the brand is restored by an edited review reflecting better satisfaction.

Now, let’s bucket this general pattern into smaller segments for a more nuanced understanding. Note: There is an overlap in the following information, as some customers experienced multiple positive elements that convinced them to update their reviews.

Key to review transformation:

70 percent mentioned poor service/rude service rectified by a second experience in which staff demonstrated caring.

64 percent mentioned the owner/manager/staff proactively, directly reached out to the customer with a remedy.

32 percent mentioned item replaced or job re-done for free.

20 percent mentioned customer decided to give a business a second chance on their own and was better-pleased by a second experience.

6 percent mentioned customer realized the fault for a misunderstanding was theirs.

From this data, two insights become clear and belong at the core of your reputation strategy:

Poor and rude service seriously fuel negative reviews

This correlates well with the findings of an earlier GatherUp study demonstrating that 57 percent of consumer complaints revolve around customer service and employee behavior. It’s critical to realize that nearly three-quarters of these disasters could be turned around with subsequent excellent service. As one customer in my study phrased it:

“X has since gone above and beyond to resolve the issue and make me feel like they cared.”

Proactive outreach is your negative review repair kit

Well over half of the subjects in my study specifically mentioned that the business had reached out to them in some way. I suspect many instances of such outreach went undocumented in the review updates, so the number may actually be much higher than represented.

Outreach can happen in a variety of ways:

The business may recognize who the customer is and have their name and number on file due to a contract.

The business may not know who the customer is but can provide an owner response to the review that includes the company’s contact information and an earnest request to get in touch.

The business can DM the customer if the negative review is on Yelp.

You’re being given a second chance if you get the customer’s ear a second time. It’s then up to your brand to do everything you can to change their opinion. Here’s one customer’s description of how far a local business was willing to go to get back into his good graces:

“X made every effort to make up for the failed programming and the lack of customer service the night before. My sales rep, his manager and even the finance rep reached out by phone, text and email. I was actually in meetings all morning, watching my phone buzz with what turned out to be their calls, as they attempted to find out what they could do to make amends. Mark came over on my lunch break, fixed/reprogrammed the remote and even comped me a free tank of gas for my next fill up. I appreciated his sincere apologies and wanted to update/revise my review as a token of my appreciation.”

What a great example of dedication to earning forgiveness!

Should you actively ask restored customers to edit their negative reviews?

I confess — this setup makes me a bit nervous. I took Twitter poll to gauge sentiment among my followers:

Respondents showed strong support for asking a customer who has been restored to happiness to edit their review. However, I would add a few provisos.

Firstly, not one of the subjects in my study mentioned that the business requested they update their review. Perhaps it went undocumented, but there was absolutely zero suggestion that restored customers had been prompted to re-review the business.

Secondly, I would want to be 100 percent certain that the customer is, indeed, delighted again. Otherwise, you could end up with something truly awful on your review profile, like this:

Suffice it to say, never demand an edited review, and certainly don’t use one as blackmail!

With a nod to the Twitter poll, I think it might be alright to mention you’d appreciate an updated review. I’d be extremely choosy about how you word your request so as not to make the customer feel obligated in any way. And I’d only do so if the customer was truly, sincerely restored to a sense of trust and well-being by the brand.

So what are negative reviews, really?

In so many cases, negative reviews are neither punishment nor the end of the road.

They are, in fact, a form of customer outreach that’s often akin to a cry for help.

Someone trusted your business and was disappointed. Your brand needs to equip itself to ride to the rescue. I was struck by how many reviewers said they felt uncared-for, and impressed by how business owners like this one completely turned things around:

In this light, review platforms are simply a communications medium hosting back-and-forth between customer people and business people. Communicate with a rescue plan and your reputation can “sparkle like diamonds”, too.

Reviews-in-progress

I want to close by mentioning how evident it was to me, upon completing this study, that reviewers take their task seriously. The average word count of the Yelp reviews I surveyed was about 250 words. If half of the 12,584 words I examined expressed disappointment, your brand is empowered to make the other half express forgiveness for mistakes and restoration of trust.

It could well be that the industry term “negative” review is misleading, causing unnecessary fear for local brands and their marketers. What if, instead, we thought of this influential content as “reviews-in-progress,” with the potential for transformation charting the mastery of your brand at customer service.

The short road is that you prevent negative experiences by doubling down on staff hiring and training practices that leave people with nothing to complain about in the entire customer service ecosystem. But re-dubbing online records of inevitable mistakes as “reviews-in-progress” simply means treading a slightly longer road to reputation, retention, and revenue. If your local brand is in business for the long haul, you’ve got this!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[ductrungnguyen87]

How to Get a Customer to Edit Their Negative Review

Posted by MiriamEllis

“When you forgive, you in no way change the pas — but you sure do change the future.” — Bernard Meltzer

Your brand inhabits a challenging world in which its consumers’ words make up the bulk of your reputation. Negative reviews can feel like the ultimate revenge, punishing dissatisfactory experiences with public shaming, eroded local rankings, and attendant revenue loss. Some business owners become so worried about negative reviews, they head to fora asking if there is any way to opt-out and even querying whether they should simply remove their business listings altogether rather than face the discordant music.

But hang in there. Local business customers may be more forgiving than you think. In fact, your customers may think differently than you might think. 

I’ve just completed a study of consumer behavior as it relates to negative reviews becoming positive ones and I believe this blog post will hold some very welcome surprises for concerned local business owners and their marketers — I know that some of what I learned both surprised and delighted me. In fact, it’s convinced me that, in case after case, negative reviews aren’t what we might think they are at all.

Let’s study this together, with real-world examples, data, a poll, and takeaways that could transform your outlook. 

Stats to start with

Your company winds up with a negative review, and the possibility of a permanently lost customer. Marketing wisdom tells us that it’s more costly to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one happy. But it's actually more far-reaching. The following list of stats tells the story of why you want to do anything you can to get the customer to edit a bad review to reflect more positive sentiment:

57 percent of consumers will only use a business if it has four or more stars — (BrightLocal)

One study showed that ~1.5-star rating increase improved conversions from 10.4 percent to 12.8 percent, representing about 13,000 more leads for the brand. — (Location3)

73.8 percent of customers are either likely or extremely likely to continue doing business with a brand that resolves their complaints. — (GatherUp)

A typical business only hears from four percent of its dissatisfied customers, meaning that the negative reviews you rectify for outspoken people could solve problems for silent ones. — (Ruby Newell-Lerner)

89 percent of consumers read businesses' responses to reviews. — (BrightLocal)

The impact of ratings, reviews, and responses are so clear that every local brand needs to devote resources to better understanding this scenario of sentiment and customer retention.

People power: One reason consumers love reviews

The Better Business Bureau was founded in 1912. The Federal Trade Commission made its debut just two years later. Consumer protections are deemed a necessity, but until the internet put the potential of mass reviews directly into individuals hands, the “little guy” often felt he lacked a truly audible voice when the “big guy” (business) didn’t do right by him.

You can see how local business review platforms have become a bully pulpit, empowering everyday people to make their feelings known to a large audience. And, you can see from reviews, like the one below, the relish with which some consumers embrace that power:

Here, a customer is boasting the belief that they outwitted an entity which would otherwise have defrauded them, if not for the influence of a review platform. That’s our first impression. But if we look a little closer, what we’re really seeing here is that the platform is a communications tool between consumer and brand. The reviewer is saying:

“The business has to do right by me if I put this on Yelp!”

What they’re communicating isn’t nice, and may well be untrue, but it is certainly a message they want to be amplified.

And this is where things get interesting.

Brand power: Full of surprises!

This month, I created a spreadsheet to organize data I was collecting about negative reviews being transformed into positive ones. I searched Yelp for the phrase “edited my review” in cities in every region of the United States and quickly amassed 50 examples for in-depth analysis. In the process, I discovered three pieces of information that could be relevant to your brand.

Surprise #1: Many consumers think of their reviews as living documents

In this first example, we see a customer who left a review after having trouble making an appointment and promising to update their content once they’d experienced actual service. As I combed through consumer sentiment, I was enlightened to discover that many people treat reviews as live objects, updating them over time to reflect evolving experiences. How far do reviewers go with this approach? Just look:

In the above example, the customer has handled their review in four separate updates spanning several days. If you look at the stars, they went from high to low to high again. It’s akin to live updates from a sporting event, and that honestly surprised me to see.

Brands should see this as good news because it means an initial negative review doesn’t have to be set in stone.

Surprise #2: Consumers can be incredibly forgiving

“What really defines you is how you handle the situation after you realize you made a mistake.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself, and this edited review typifies for me the reasonableness I saw in case after case. Far from being the scary, irrational customers that business owners dread, it's clear that many people have the basic understanding that mistakes can happen… and can be rectified. I even saw people forgiving auto dealerships for damaging their cars, once things had been made right.

Surprise #3: Consumers can be self-correcting.

The customer apparently isn’t “always right,” and some of them know it. I saw several instances of customers editing their reviews after realizing that they were the ones who made a mistake. For example, one rather long review saga contained this:

“I didn't realize they had an hourly option so my initial review was 3 stars. However, after the company letting me know they'd be happy to modify my charges since I overlooked the hourly option, it was only fair to edit my review. I thought that was really nice of them. 5 stars and will be using them again in the future.”

When a customer has initially misunderstood a policy or offering and the business in question takes the time to clarify things, fair-minded individuals can feel honor-bound to update their reviews. Many updated reviews contained phrases like “in good conscience” and “in all fairness.”

Overall, in studying this group of reviewers, I found them to be reasonable people, meaning that your brand has (surprising) significant power to work with dissatisfied customers to win back their respect and their business.

How negative reviews become positive: Identifying winning patterns

In my case study, the dominant, overall pattern of negative reviews being transformed into positive ones consisted of these three Rs:

Reach — the customer reaches out with their negative experience, often knowing that, in this day and age, powerful review platforms are a way to reach brands.

Remedy — Some type of fix occurs, whether this results from intervention on the part of the brand, a second positive experience outweighing an initial negative one, or the consumer self-correcting their own misunderstanding.

Restoration — The unhappy customer is restored to the business as a happy one, hopefully, ready to trust the brand for future transactions, and the reputation of the brand is restored by an edited review reflecting better satisfaction.

Now, let’s bucket this general pattern into smaller segments for a more nuanced understanding. Note: There is an overlap in the following information, as some customers experienced multiple positive elements that convinced them to update their reviews.

Key to review transformation:

70 percent mentioned poor service/rude service rectified by a second experience in which staff demonstrated caring.

64 percent mentioned the owner/manager/staff proactively, directly reached out to the customer with a remedy.

32 percent mentioned item replaced or job re-done for free.

20 percent mentioned customer decided to give a business a second chance on their own and was better-pleased by a second experience.

6 percent mentioned customer realized the fault for a misunderstanding was theirs.

From this data, two insights become clear and belong at the core of your reputation strategy:

Poor and rude service seriously fuel negative reviews

This correlates well with the findings of an earlier GatherUp study demonstrating that 57 percent of consumer complaints revolve around customer service and employee behavior. It’s critical to realize that nearly three-quarters of these disasters could be turned around with subsequent excellent service. As one customer in my study phrased it:

“X has since gone above and beyond to resolve the issue and make me feel like they cared.”

Proactive outreach is your negative review repair kit

Well over half of the subjects in my study specifically mentioned that the business had reached out to them in some way. I suspect many instances of such outreach went undocumented in the review updates, so the number may actually be much higher than represented.

Outreach can happen in a variety of ways:

The business may recognize who the customer is and have their name and number on file due to a contract.

The business may not know who the customer is but can provide an owner response to the review that includes the company’s contact information and an earnest request to get in touch.

The business can DM the customer if the negative review is on Yelp.

You’re being given a second chance if you get the customer’s ear a second time. It’s then up to your brand to do everything you can to change their opinion. Here’s one customer’s description of how far a local business was willing to go to get back into his good graces:

“X made every effort to make up for the failed programming and the lack of customer service the night before. My sales rep, his manager and even the finance rep reached out by phone, text and email. I was actually in meetings all morning, watching my phone buzz with what turned out to be their calls, as they attempted to find out what they could do to make amends. Mark came over on my lunch break, fixed/reprogrammed the remote and even comped me a free tank of gas for my next fill up. I appreciated his sincere apologies and wanted to update/revise my review as a token of my appreciation.”

What a great example of dedication to earning forgiveness!

Should you actively ask restored customers to edit their negative reviews?

I confess — this setup makes me a bit nervous. I took Twitter poll to gauge sentiment among my followers:

Respondents showed strong support for asking a customer who has been restored to happiness to edit their review. However, I would add a few provisos.

Firstly, not one of the subjects in my study mentioned that the business requested they update their review. Perhaps it went undocumented, but there was absolutely zero suggestion that restored customers had been prompted to re-review the business.

Secondly, I would want to be 100 percent certain that the customer is, indeed, delighted again. Otherwise, you could end up with something truly awful on your review profile, like this:

Suffice it to say, never demand an edited review, and certainly don’t use one as blackmail!

With a nod to the Twitter poll, I think it might be alright to mention you’d appreciate an updated review. I’d be extremely choosy about how you word your request so as not to make the customer feel obligated in any way. And I’d only do so if the customer was truly, sincerely restored to a sense of trust and well-being by the brand.

So what are negative reviews, really?

In so many cases, negative reviews are neither punishment nor the end of the road.

They are, in fact, a form of customer outreach that’s often akin to a cry for help.

Someone trusted your business and was disappointed. Your brand needs to equip itself to ride to the rescue. I was struck by how many reviewers said they felt uncared-for, and impressed by how business owners like this one completely turned things around:

In this light, review platforms are simply a communications medium hosting back-and-forth between customer people and business people. Communicate with a rescue plan and your reputation can “sparkle like diamonds”, too.

Reviews-in-progress

I want to close by mentioning how evident it was to me, upon completing this study, that reviewers take their task seriously. The average word count of the Yelp reviews I surveyed was about 250 words. If half of the 12,584 words I examined expressed disappointment, your brand is empowered to make the other half express forgiveness for mistakes and restoration of trust.

It could well be that the industry term “negative” review is misleading, causing unnecessary fear for local brands and their marketers. What if, instead, we thought of this influential content as “reviews-in-progress,” with the potential for transformation charting the mastery of your brand at customer service.

The short road is that you prevent negative experiences by doubling down on staff hiring and training practices that leave people with nothing to complain about in the entire customer service ecosystem. But re-dubbing online records of inevitable mistakes as “reviews-in-progress” simply means treading a slightly longer road to reputation, retention, and revenue. If your local brand is in business for the long haul, you’ve got this!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!

[noithatotoaz]

How to Get a Customer to Edit Their Negative Review

Posted by MiriamEllis

“When you forgive, you in no way change the pas — but you sure do change the future.” — Bernard Meltzer

Your brand inhabits a challenging world in which its consumers’ words make up the bulk of your reputation. Negative reviews can feel like the ultimate revenge, punishing dissatisfactory experiences with public shaming, eroded local rankings, and attendant revenue loss. Some business owners become so worried about negative reviews, they head to fora asking if there is any way to opt-out and even querying whether they should simply remove their business listings altogether rather than face the discordant music.

But hang in there. Local business customers may be more forgiving than you think. In fact, your customers may think differently than you might think. 

I’ve just completed a study of consumer behavior as it relates to negative reviews becoming positive ones and I believe this blog post will hold some very welcome surprises for concerned local business owners and their marketers — I know that some of what I learned both surprised and delighted me. In fact, it’s convinced me that, in case after case, negative reviews aren’t what we might think they are at all.

Let’s study this together, with real-world examples, data, a poll, and takeaways that could transform your outlook. 

Stats to start with

Your company winds up with a negative review, and the possibility of a permanently lost customer. Marketing wisdom tells us that it’s more costly to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one happy. But it's actually more far-reaching. The following list of stats tells the story of why you want to do anything you can to get the customer to edit a bad review to reflect more positive sentiment:

57 percent of consumers will only use a business if it has four or more stars — (BrightLocal)

One study showed that ~1.5-star rating increase improved conversions from 10.4 percent to 12.8 percent, representing about 13,000 more leads for the brand. — (Location3)

73.8 percent of customers are either likely or extremely likely to continue doing business with a brand that resolves their complaints. — (GatherUp)

A typical business only hears from four percent of its dissatisfied customers, meaning that the negative reviews you rectify for outspoken people could solve problems for silent ones. — (Ruby Newell-Lerner)

89 percent of consumers read businesses' responses to reviews. — (BrightLocal)

The impact of ratings, reviews, and responses are so clear that every local brand needs to devote resources to better understanding this scenario of sentiment and customer retention.

People power: One reason consumers love reviews

The Better Business Bureau was founded in 1912. The Federal Trade Commission made its debut just two years later. Consumer protections are deemed a necessity, but until the internet put the potential of mass reviews directly into individuals hands, the “little guy” often felt he lacked a truly audible voice when the “big guy” (business) didn’t do right by him.

You can see how local business review platforms have become a bully pulpit, empowering everyday people to make their feelings known to a large audience. And, you can see from reviews, like the one below, the relish with which some consumers embrace that power:

Here, a customer is boasting the belief that they outwitted an entity which would otherwise have defrauded them, if not for the influence of a review platform. That’s our first impression. But if we look a little closer, what we’re really seeing here is that the platform is a communications tool between consumer and brand. The reviewer is saying:

“The business has to do right by me if I put this on Yelp!”

What they’re communicating isn’t nice, and may well be untrue, but it is certainly a message they want to be amplified.

And this is where things get interesting.

Brand power: Full of surprises!

This month, I created a spreadsheet to organize data I was collecting about negative reviews being transformed into positive ones. I searched Yelp for the phrase “edited my review” in cities in every region of the United States and quickly amassed 50 examples for in-depth analysis. In the process, I discovered three pieces of information that could be relevant to your brand.

Surprise #1: Many consumers think of their reviews as living documents

In this first example, we see a customer who left a review after having trouble making an appointment and promising to update their content once they’d experienced actual service. As I combed through consumer sentiment, I was enlightened to discover that many people treat reviews as live objects, updating them over time to reflect evolving experiences. How far do reviewers go with this approach? Just look:

In the above example, the customer has handled their review in four separate updates spanning several days. If you look at the stars, they went from high to low to high again. It’s akin to live updates from a sporting event, and that honestly surprised me to see.

Brands should see this as good news because it means an initial negative review doesn’t have to be set in stone.

Surprise #2: Consumers can be incredibly forgiving

“What really defines you is how you handle the situation after you realize you made a mistake.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself, and this edited review typifies for me the reasonableness I saw in case after case. Far from being the scary, irrational customers that business owners dread, it's clear that many people have the basic understanding that mistakes can happen… and can be rectified. I even saw people forgiving auto dealerships for damaging their cars, once things had been made right.

Surprise #3: Consumers can be self-correcting.

The customer apparently isn’t “always right,” and some of them know it. I saw several instances of customers editing their reviews after realizing that they were the ones who made a mistake. For example, one rather long review saga contained this:

“I didn't realize they had an hourly option so my initial review was 3 stars. However, after the company letting me know they'd be happy to modify my charges since I overlooked the hourly option, it was only fair to edit my review. I thought that was really nice of them. 5 stars and will be using them again in the future.”

When a customer has initially misunderstood a policy or offering and the business in question takes the time to clarify things, fair-minded individuals can feel honor-bound to update their reviews. Many updated reviews contained phrases like “in good conscience” and “in all fairness.”

Overall, in studying this group of reviewers, I found them to be reasonable people, meaning that your brand has (surprising) significant power to work with dissatisfied customers to win back their respect and their business.

How negative reviews become positive: Identifying winning patterns

In my case study, the dominant, overall pattern of negative reviews being transformed into positive ones consisted of these three Rs:

Reach — the customer reaches out with their negative experience, often knowing that, in this day and age, powerful review platforms are a way to reach brands.

Remedy — Some type of fix occurs, whether this results from intervention on the part of the brand, a second positive experience outweighing an initial negative one, or the consumer self-correcting their own misunderstanding.

Restoration — The unhappy customer is restored to the business as a happy one, hopefully, ready to trust the brand for future transactions, and the reputation of the brand is restored by an edited review reflecting better satisfaction.

Now, let’s bucket this general pattern into smaller segments for a more nuanced understanding. Note: There is an overlap in the following information, as some customers experienced multiple positive elements that convinced them to update their reviews.

Key to review transformation:

70 percent mentioned poor service/rude service rectified by a second experience in which staff demonstrated caring.

64 percent mentioned the owner/manager/staff proactively, directly reached out to the customer with a remedy.

32 percent mentioned item replaced or job re-done for free.

20 percent mentioned customer decided to give a business a second chance on their own and was better-pleased by a second experience.

6 percent mentioned customer realized the fault for a misunderstanding was theirs.

From this data, two insights become clear and belong at the core of your reputation strategy:

Poor and rude service seriously fuel negative reviews

This correlates well with the findings of an earlier GatherUp study demonstrating that 57 percent of consumer complaints revolve around customer service and employee behavior. It’s critical to realize that nearly three-quarters of these disasters could be turned around with subsequent excellent service. As one customer in my study phrased it:

“X has since gone above and beyond to resolve the issue and make me feel like they cared.”

Proactive outreach is your negative review repair kit

Well over half of the subjects in my study specifically mentioned that the business had reached out to them in some way. I suspect many instances of such outreach went undocumented in the review updates, so the number may actually be much higher than represented.

Outreach can happen in a variety of ways:

The business may recognize who the customer is and have their name and number on file due to a contract.

The business may not know who the customer is but can provide an owner response to the review that includes the company’s contact information and an earnest request to get in touch.

The business can DM the customer if the negative review is on Yelp.

You’re being given a second chance if you get the customer’s ear a second time. It’s then up to your brand to do everything you can to change their opinion. Here’s one customer’s description of how far a local business was willing to go to get back into his good graces:

“X made every effort to make up for the failed programming and the lack of customer service the night before. My sales rep, his manager and even the finance rep reached out by phone, text and email. I was actually in meetings all morning, watching my phone buzz with what turned out to be their calls, as they attempted to find out what they could do to make amends. Mark came over on my lunch break, fixed/reprogrammed the remote and even comped me a free tank of gas for my next fill up. I appreciated his sincere apologies and wanted to update/revise my review as a token of my appreciation.”

What a great example of dedication to earning forgiveness!

Should you actively ask restored customers to edit their negative reviews?

I confess — this setup makes me a bit nervous. I took Twitter poll to gauge sentiment among my followers:

Respondents showed strong support for asking a customer who has been restored to happiness to edit their review. However, I would add a few provisos.

Firstly, not one of the subjects in my study mentioned that the business requested they update their review. Perhaps it went undocumented, but there was absolutely zero suggestion that restored customers had been prompted to re-review the business.

Secondly, I would want to be 100 percent certain that the customer is, indeed, delighted again. Otherwise, you could end up with something truly awful on your review profile, like this:

Suffice it to say, never demand an edited review, and certainly don’t use one as blackmail!

With a nod to the Twitter poll, I think it might be alright to mention you’d appreciate an updated review. I’d be extremely choosy about how you word your request so as not to make the customer feel obligated in any way. And I’d only do so if the customer was truly, sincerely restored to a sense of trust and well-being by the brand.

So what are negative reviews, really?

In so many cases, negative reviews are neither punishment nor the end of the road.

They are, in fact, a form of customer outreach that’s often akin to a cry for help.

Someone trusted your business and was disappointed. Your brand needs to equip itself to ride to the rescue. I was struck by how many reviewers said they felt uncared-for, and impressed by how business owners like this one completely turned things around:

In this light, review platforms are simply a communications medium hosting back-and-forth between customer people and business people. Communicate with a rescue plan and your reputation can “sparkle like diamonds”, too.

Reviews-in-progress

I want to close by mentioning how evident it was to me, upon completing this study, that reviewers take their task seriously. The average word count of the Yelp reviews I surveyed was about 250 words. If half of the 12,584 words I examined expressed disappointment, your brand is empowered to make the other half express forgiveness for mistakes and restoration of trust.

It could well be that the industry term “negative” review is misleading, causing unnecessary fear for local brands and their marketers. What if, instead, we thought of this influential content as “reviews-in-progress,” with the potential for transformation charting the mastery of your brand at customer service.

The short road is that you prevent negative experiences by doubling down on staff hiring and training practices that leave people with nothing to complain about in the entire customer service ecosystem. But re-dubbing online records of inevitable mistakes as “reviews-in-progress” simply means treading a slightly longer road to reputation, retention, and revenue. If your local brand is in business for the long haul, you’ve got this!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!