Everyone loves great service. It’s the thing that makes the difference between a tedious errand and an enjoyable experience. There is just something about a friendly, helpful staff member that can really make your day. Of course value for money is just as important, but a company that offers fantastic rates will still find themselves hurting if their employees aren’t able or willing to give clients that joyous feeling of being genuinely helped by someone enthusiastic about doing a great job and making the experience a positive one.
So, if this is something that we all universally agree is great, then why is nobody talking about it? People seem only too eager to jump online and post bad reviews if they’re unhappy about poor customer service. But not everyone is as eager to speak up on positive reviews. Why? Is it because good customer service is the expectation? Have we become so jaded and unappreciative of someone doing a fantastic job that we only notice when they don’t? And of course, living in this online digital world, we tell the internet everything, so why not our experience with a certain company?
This is the reason you should tread carefully when checking out online reviews before deciding where to go to spend your money. People rely heavily on these and therein lies the problem. You will never get a true measure of service quality from online reviews, star ratings and the like because these will inevitably be negatively skewed. So, what does this mean? What should you do? I’m glad you asked…
Firstly, read the comments. Any negative review or low star rating should be backed up by a concrete example of why it was bad service. And pay attention if the company has replied and attempted to resolve the issue. Great companies take negative feedback on board and still try to help the customer. These interactions are an excellent way of determining if the customer service is genuinely poor, or if the client was just being overly difficult. Second, check out how many reviews they have. If it’s one, then essentially you should ignore it. That is far too small a sample size to provide any kind of accurate indication one way or another. The higher the number of reviews, the more confident you can be that you are getting a well-rounded view of just how good this business is.
But buyer still beware the company that enters online ratings themselves to try and boost their profile. Again, read the comments. Stuff like “great prices and friendly staff” isn’t enough for a five-star rating. What you are looking for are examples. Statistically most companies should be scoring around three to four stars if they are a legitimate and reasonable business. Anyone scoring zero or five, has likely been skewed by biased reviews. Comments with actual examples should be your go to, always.
I hope this helps you all somewhat in treading the overwhelming maze that can be online reviews. Good luck take care and may all your customer service interactions be positive. And if they are, write about them. With examples.
Harley's Madhouse 