When a business owner sees his or his company’s name being kicked around and muddied up in a review, the first reaction is usually shock, immediately followed by alarm and then anger. In many cases a defensive mentality is quickly embraced, but it really pays to keep a clear head, gather some info and then contact the customer, client or patient and offer to make things right.
We have tips on what and how to gather the info, but many of the details of what you should do are based on the specifics of the situation. Above all, remember that many lawyers make no real money unless they get a lawsuit of some sort. So while you should consult with legal consul when considering a lawsuit, you also have to understand the value of any advice and the results of the choices you make.
As we all know, a lawsuit could go public or go viral online and reflect on the parties involved in unexpected ways. Are you ready for that? Is your current reputation strong enough to defend it or recover from it? Or is your reputation weak, average or maybe even non-existent? Remember, a bad, average or invisible (non-existant) reputation could do more to reinforce the customer side of the equation than yours because it doesn’t show a history of you doing consistently good work.
A case in point is the California dentist who didn’t appreciate a negative Yelp review from the ex-husband of one of his patients. The dentist decided the review was slanderous (or the dentist’s lawyer did) and a lawsuit was filed. While the patient herself had complained to the dentist about her dissatisfaction with a procedure, she also claimed to not having written the review. Nevertheless, she was still a target in the lawsuit, in addition to her ex.
This scenario has a few sticky parts that might have been avoided. Lawsuits are often picked up by local news reporters when trolling for stories so making it a legal issue exposed it at that level. But the story could also have been push to the media by either party – even an employee – before there was ever a legal flap. Either way, once the waves become more than a slight ripple it has a high probability to go viral from the news site and/or hit social media venues and spread from there.
The overall message being sent comes from the dentist since he made it a legal issue. It says the dentist is litigious, especially since at least one other review on Yelp by the dentist is a potential threat of legal action. This sends a message to anyone considering that particular dentist that they could be sued if his work doesn’t live up to their expectations and they complain publicly.
It also says that the dentist may not believe his patients have a right to their freedom of speech. And ultimately, it says that either he couldn’t or wouldn’t go so far as to make things right with the patient. That said, we did see one or more of his comments on Yelp reviews where he asked the patient to come in so he can make it right.
Now let’s flip the coin and look at the other side.
What was fully explained to the patient beforehand to avoid it being the dentist just try to “sell” the patient on a $30,000 procedure? After the dissatisfaction with the work, did the dentist call both the patient and the ex-husband into his office to discuss the issues? Was there a discussion on the ramifications of doing further work on her teeth? What if the original work had involved a procedure that made it a one-way street with no turning back or redoing it if it’s not perfect or to her liking?
Let’s assume all of this was covered in detail and the dentist did everything short of refunding the money and/or redoing the work. What did the dentist do or offer to make it right? What did the patient do to try and come to a resolution?
Are the legal fees and the unknown loss of business as a result of the bad press going to cost the dentist more than if he had just refunded the patient’s money or offered some free services to fix the problem?
Was the dentist’s existing reputation strong enough to survive the slap? We’ll look at that in a minute, but even after the ex-husband removed the review, the dentist continued with the lawsuit. That really pushes it to the point of the dentist maybe not knowing when to quit and it could get worse for the dentist from there.
The final answer may end up blind-siding the dentist because of the new “Yelp law”. Apparently lawsuits of this type may be illegal – at least in California. In 2014, the Governor signed Assembly Bill 2365 (finalizing the Yelp law) which prohibits businesses from fining their customers for online reviews. The reason it could get worse for this dentist is that a company taking legal action against a customer/client/patient posting a review can be fined $2,500 for a first offense (with a fine up to $15,000 for repeat offenses).
Before the Yelp law became an issue, it might have gone either way, but if the Yelp law comes into play is the lawsuit going to more than pay for the supposed lost business the dentist is suffering for? Maybe, but then again, maybe not.
The dentist’s reputation is also a factor. His practice has a Google+ (Zagat) review rating of 4.6 from just 9 reviews. That’s not a very powerful total number of reviews when it comes to public opinion. Especially when 6 of the reviews are 3 years or older.
How would you look at this reputation review score if it were yours? Would it be ok or good enough? For many businesses a low number of reviews is acceptable if they have a high score. The problem is that most consumers see through that immediately. You really can’t afford to underestimate how sharp consumers are as they become more and more adept at using the web to their advantage.
From our perspective the total review score itself is good, but the numbers behind it are weak. Based on the number of patients an average dentist might have and the potential number of good reviews one might deserve as a good dentist, we would expect him to have 4 to 5-star reviews posted in various locations online every week.
And ultimately THAT is what you need to power through attacks and hiccups with your reputation – in addition to handling them more effectively. You need to be acquiring great reviews on a regular basis, getthem posted online and have an opportunity to make unhappy customers happy BEFORE they post their bad reviews.
That’s what Reputation Maximization does. It covers all the review bases for you and lets you focus on your day-to-day business.
Another positive note – the dentist has stepped in to comment on some of the reviews his practice receives at Yelp, but because of the infrequency of both the Google+ and Yelp reviews it seems that there isn’t a proactive effort to get more of them online.
Granted, that’s just the way it looks from here and it could be that they are just going about it all wrong with a flawed process. But if that’s the case, it clearly isn’t working well and they need it to – even if there wasn’t a lawsuit involved. His business would be getting more customers if he was acquiring more 5-Star reviews more often.
In a future post we’ll look at a specific situation similar to this, but without any legal issues that we’re aware of. Because most businesses are not in a legal entanglement most of the time, we’ll be able to see how an average situation could apply to your business and be costing you $1,000’s per month in business.