Making the Best of Bad Reviews

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One star: “More like ‘Mediocre Canyon.’”
– Grand Canyon National Park review (yelp.com)

One star: “Just a brown lump of metal. Nothing special.”
– Eiffel Tower review (tripadvisor.com)

One star: “The ice cream was too cold.”
– McDonald’s restaurant review (yelp.com)

Unfair negative reviews, ones that stem from unrealistic consumer expectations or are focused on something outside of the company’s control, are common on user-review websites. Survey evidence of 1,000 one- and two-star reviews of 60 top-ranked hotels around the world pulled from Tripadvisor using independent judges found that about a quarter of those negative reviews were unfair on some aspects. Given the prevalence of unfair negative reviews, how should companies respond?

Firms seem to be split on how to deal with these public expressions of customer disgruntlement. Some companies have tried calling out publicly or suing the reviewers. Others, like the Vienna Tourism Board, bought-in with the negative reviews, turning so-called “flaws” into blessings in their advertising campaigns — by, for instance, creating a poster of a couple in a boat on the serene Danube with a caption “Boooring!” and zero stars. In a forthcoming paper in the Journal of Marketing, the three of us suggest that companies should follow Vienna’s lead and embrace these unfair negative reviews.

When we surveyed consumers about unfair negative reviews, we found that unfair reviews did not change most people’s original perception of the firm (43.1%), and over a quarter of respondents felt more positively toward the reviewed firm. Across a variety of different product and service categories and over 3,000 observations, our research finds that unfair negative reviews naturally elicit empathy toward the firm from third-party consumers reading the review. Similar to how person-to-person feelings of empathy operate, seeing an imbalance in justice evokes heightened empathy. This empathy, in turn, leads to positive outcomes for the reviewed company, such as increased purchase and patronage. In some cases, these unfair negative reviews can sometimes help reviewed companies just as much as positive reviews.

Here are three ways to use reviews to evoke empathy from your consumers.

Embrace your critics.

Firms should consider embracing unfair reviews, either by allowing them to exist in the context of other reviews for the product or company or by highlighting these unfair negative reviews in their communications. For one, when a negative review is clearly out of sync with the bulk of appraisals, leaving it up can evoke positive responses to the company that are on par with, if not better than, positive reviews. Similarly, by leveraging these reviews in advertising campaigns with humor or irony if consistent with the brand image (e.g., the Snowbird Ski Resort highlighting, with humor, negative reviews about the expert experience they offer as “There are NO easy runs, one-star”), companies can harness both empathy and the understanding that they are in on the absurdity.

Respond with a personalized message.

Empathy seems to be the cornerstone upon which positive responses to unfair reviews are built. Thus, companies should use techniques that can evoke empathy and perspective-taking amongst all third-party consumers. Specifically, this work suggests that responding to all reviews, positive, negative, fair or unfair, with a personalized response (e.g., photos of the employees, first names, first-person language, direct email response address) can instigate empathy in consumers. These personalized responses highlight the human face behind the company and give the feeling of human interaction. The current research found that these response interventions evoked increased empathy not just for unfair reviews, but also fair negative and even positive reviews. Simple, easy company responses can be beneficial to reviewed companies, regardless of the nature of the review.

Share an employee “spotlight.”

Providing spotlights of employees who helped with the creation or delivery of the product or service can increase perspective-taking and empathy. Past work has found that providing these kinds of human details gives consumers an identifiable person who may be at the whim of reviewers. Identifiability initiates increased perspective-taking, the core of empathetic responding. By creating an employee spotlight (e.g., employee profiles, “meet your barista,” highlighting the employee who helped make the product using their picture and name within marketing communications), empathy can be primed in the consumer who will look at reviews with a more empathetic perspective.

Unfair negative reviews are inevitable, but not necessarily a downfall for companies. Consumers, it seems, are motivated by unfairness because it elicits a sense of empathy for the reviewed company. By embracing these reviews, companies may be able to benefit from the natural empathy these reviews arouse.  And, in doing so, boost positive responses from reviews at large, regardless of whether the reviews are positive or negative.