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How Negative Reviews Impact a Business

Posted: December 22, 2015
[caption id="attachment_12546" align="alignright" width="344"]Negative reviews Image from socialmediatoday.com[/caption] Negative reviews are a part of business. A negative online review can certainly affect a business, but may not be as devastating as you think. Learn the real impact of negative reviews, and how you can counteract them. Scott Barnett, writer for Social Media Today, shares what the impact of negative reviews are on a business.

The Real Impact of Negative Reviews

I’ve recently been talking to folks about the impact of negative reviews on popular review sites. There is a thread going around regarding the fate of Longs Jewelers in Boston, MA – they were hit with a systemic review attack that Facebook would not respond to until the story went public. And of course, there are the never ending stories about Yelp abuse – authentic reviews being filtered and bad reviews being highlighted.

One point people have brought up is the article in the Harvard Business Review that implied that a one star increase in a business’ overall rating on Yelp can result in a 5-9% increase in overall business. It’s easy to jump to that conclusion, and numbers are always a powerful motivator to influence behavior. Some business owners believe a single negative review of their business online will severely and negatively impact their business. But when it comes to this particular study, I would like to highlight a few key points:
  • The study was written in September 2011, which is over four years ago. I’m not aware of an updated study, which means this information is quite dated, especially for online properties.
Read the entire artice The Real Impact of Negative Reviews on Social Media Today.

I’ve recently been talking to folks about the impact of negative reviews on popular review sites. There is a thread going around regarding the fate of Longs Jewelers in Boston, MA – they were hit with a systemic review attack that Facebook would not respond to until the story went public. And of course, there are the never ending stories about Yelp abuse – authentic reviews being filtered and bad reviews being highlighted.

One point people have brought up is the article in the Harvard Business Review that implied that a one star increase in a business’ overall rating on Yelp can result in a 5-9% increase in overall business. It’s easy to jump to that conclusion, and numbers are always a powerful motivator to influence behavior. Some business owners believe a single negative review of their business online will severely and negatively impact their business. - See more at: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/social-business/real-impact-negative-reviews#sthash.H4l7eC0M.dpuf

I’ve recently been talking to folks about the impact of negative reviews on popular review sites. There is a thread going around regarding the fate of Longs Jewelers in Boston, MA – they were hit with a systemic review attack that Facebook would not respond to until the story went public. And of course, there are the never ending stories about Yelp abuse – authentic reviews being filtered and bad reviews being highlighted.

One point people have brought up is the article in the Harvard Business Review that implied that a one star increase in a business’ overall rating on Yelp can result in a 5-9% increase in overall business. It’s easy to jump to that conclusion, and numbers are always a powerful motivator to influence behavior. Some business owners believe a single negative review of their business online will severely and negatively impact their business. - See more at: http://www.socialmediatoday.com/social-business/real-impact-negative-reviews#sthash.H4l7eC0M.dpuf