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<\/a><\/p>\nHowever when asked the same question about positive reviews, consumers were nowhere near as likely to look upon positive reviews as reason to choose a business. Between 44% and 53% indicated that they were somewhat or very likely to chose a business with positive reviews. But\u00a0the vast majority of those were “somewhat likely” rather than “very likely” indicating a degree of caution even among those that were predisposed to favor the business based on positive reviews.<\/p>\n 47% and 56% of respondents indicated that would remain somewhat unlikely or not likely to choose a business based on\u00a0positive reviews. That is a large degree of skepticism.\u00a0 Interestingly there was little regional difference on the attitude towards negative reviews. Whether you were from Minnesota or California bad reviews were the kiss of the death.<\/p>\n However on the positive side, folks from the midwest were much less likely to be impressed by positive reviews and indicated significantly less likelihood to pick a business based on positive reviews. You have to love that healthy skepticism from the hinterlands.<\/p>\n Similarly when you parse the survey data by age, there was unanimity across age groups that there was little desire to look favorably on business with bad reviews. But there was significant age differences in the approach to positive reviews. The older the respondents\u00a0were, the less likely they were to be impressed by positive reviews and the younger someone was increased the likelihood that they would view positive reviews in a positive light.<\/p>\n Tomorrow or the day after, \u00a0I will explore in more depth what the terms negative and positive reviews mean to people as not everyone parses\u00a0these terms in the same way. That being said it is safe to conclude that negative reviews are much, much more likely to negatively impact your business than positive reviews are to help.<\/p>\n Depending on you business and your target demographic you need to be more or less concerned about reviews with older consumers less likely to be influenced by positive reviews. From a tactical viewpoint, these results seem to indicate\u00a0that any business that is taking reviews seriously needs to implement a consistent and thorough way to minimize the likelihood of bad reviews. This speaks strongly to having a culture that is open to accepting complaints, one that is intent upon improving their processes and \u00a0one that is\u00a0truly concerned about the consistent delivery of quality. Here are some ideas on avoiding bad reviews<\/a>.<\/p>\n I think it alsos mean that any review process needs to be equally\u00a0concerned with finding and satisfying unhappy customers as\u00a0it is with finding happy customers to leave reviews.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n