Before Al Gore invented the internet, if you had a bad experience at a business, you went home and told your friends about it. After a few days, your frustration passed, and your experience became “old news.”

Today, the internet gives you the ability to voice your opinion to the masses. Websites like Yelp.com and Epinions.com allow you to review products and services and share your experiences with the world, whether good or bad. These reviews stick around too, they are often not taken down.

If your company or product receives positive feedback, it’s priceless. You can’t buy air time or ad space worth that amount of power. The unbiased opinion by a happy consumer is GOLDEN.

Now, start thinking about what YOUR clients would say about you if they left your business today and went home and reviewed you…  

Would it be a glowing review? Would it be satisfactory? Would it hurt your business? Every time a client walks in the door, you have to remember the POWER they now have to spread the word about your company via the internet. With the boom of social media, such as; Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, this is becoming much more common.

As long as your business is offering a great service or a great product, you most likely don’t have anything to worry about. I’m sure you can recall that one customer in the past who was just not happy or chose to be difficult, or maybe YOU were having an off day. So, what happens if that client chooses to write a bad review? Don’t panic and don’t react irrationally. Most sites give you the ability to respond to the reviewer. Don’t respond in the heat of the moment after your first initial shock of a negative review. Write the reviewer back and offer your apologies and ask how you can rectify the situation. Some companies, for certain reasons, may choose not to respond at all and I believe that is okay too. A negative review among lots of positive reviews, just makes your reviews more “real” and “honest”. I actually have encountered a situation where a company had so many glowing reviews that a visitor to the review site was convinced they were all fake. So, I guess it’s true, you can’t make EVERYONE happy!

Here is something I’d like your opinion on:

I don’t normally write reviews, but I recently left a bad review on tripadvisor.com for a hotel I stayed at in Mexico. Someone told me that I shouldn’t just be a “one-time reviewer”. They said if I’m going to be a “reviewer” (of anything) then I should be leaving lots of reviews for all types of experiences. I was thinking…”I don’t have time for all that reviewing.” I just thought it was my duty to report to the public about a bad experience, but wouldn’t it be my responsibility to report the positive ones as well? What are your thoughts?