How small businesses can handle web defamation

The Internet is a veritable smorgasbord of information, leading many small businesses to wonder how they can protect their image online.

The statistics are startling: only 1 in 10 disgruntled customers actually takes the time to complain about their experience to management. But what that doesn’t tell you is that the other 90% are telling all of their friends, family and blogroll about their less-than-perfect experience. These results show up in search engines, sometimes prominently, and can tarnish a small business’s image. Right? Not quite.

The New York Times recently brought attention to the issue of online defamation with tales of how small business owners have tried, often fruitlessly, to stop customers from speaking out against them online. You have to feel at least a measure of sympathy for these people; certainly, no one likes to be spoken of negatively (particularly if the gossip isn’t true) and the livelihoods of these small business owners is on the line when people log on to criticise.

But the reality is a lot less scary. A proactive small business should already have an online presence, and if they don’t, they should be running to their nearest technophile to get one. This means that their business should already have some mention - positive, indifferent, or otherwise - in the annals of web history.

Reacting to negative online publicity is a simple case of being a responsible businessperson. If you find someone blogging or posting somewhere negatively about your business, you can approach them to see if you can rectify the situation (or, in more extreme instances, try to find out who they are and what went wrong). Doing so with a calm head, and publicly, will show those who are reading that you are taking responsibility for your actions.

If you prefer a more hands-off approach or don’t feel you can handle the situation with the coolest of cool heads, then some marketing is in order. All companies receive negative publicity and not everyone can please every customer all the time; the trick is to outweigh these negatives with positives. Look at eBay’s Feedback Forum, which provides users with a snapshot of happy/unhappy satisfied customers. Nobody minds dealing with businesses or individuals who have negative feedback, provided the majority of the feedback is positive.

Creating your own feedback on the Internet - be it in forums, on blogs, or via your own website - and doing it honestly (no fake reviews or false claims!) will quickly bury the one or two complaints Google may also bring up when you do a vanity search for your business. Why? Because very few disgruntled customers are angry enough to spend significant time launching vitriol at your business, so it’s unlikely that they are going to great lengths to do search engine optimization (SEO) and influence Google to show their negative results first (obviously this is speaking to small businesses, not larger companies who have earned the “honour” of being the focal points of sites like BritishAirwaysSuck.co.uk - they will also have the call centres, legal departments and template “cease and desist” letters to deal with these complaintants).

Due to the nature of search engines, “positive” business feedback need not even take the form you might be envisioning (”My business is the greatest ever!”), but rather involves taking steps towards saturating Google et al with general information. Sure, testimonials and reviews won’t hurt your business, but if your critics’ comments are buried behind 100 pages of other information about your business, who’s really going to look that hard… or care when they do find it?

Obviously, if someone has gone to the trouble of creating a massive campaign of negative publicity, or has garnered media attention for their complaint (baseless or not), you will need to consider taking these mega-corporate-sized steps as well. But in the vast majority of cases, chilling out and getting on with marketing your business in general will suffice.

Finally, consider this: ask ten people that you know (but haven’t told about the negative review) to read what’s been written. Do they receive the same impression as you do, or do you find that you’re reading it - and retelling it - in a certain tone that may not be the intent of the writer? Sometimes criticism is as simple as misunderstanding the tone of your customer, in which case you need to look no further than clicking away from the site in question and moving on with running your business.

So, before you go to war with every unhappy customer who has ever crossed the path of your business, consider their intent - and your reaction - carefully before making a move… because usually the best move to make really is to just move on.