I got a bad review yesterday before I even cleaned

[rob allen]

Yes you read right. Got a 1 star review from a potential client. She said she wanted Sunday but we don't clean on Sundays. She said your site says your open on Sundays. Well we are but its for emergency water damage not carpet cleaning. Now this doesn't mean that I wouldn't make an exception for valued client. But it;'s not the rule. Well she went on Google and ranted that we were incorrect and short with our answers. Now granted I didn't know any this until I saw my alert saying you got a review. Now when I read it one might assume the receptionist was curt or having a bad day. So I approached her and she said the lady was not very nice. So now I have two conflicting stories, what should I do?


Well I am of the mindset there are always 2 sides to a story. So maybe they just didn't hit it off on the phone. Regardless, I had a 1 star review staring me in the face and we didn't even do the work. So I decided to write a rebuttal. I waited a couple hours to consider what I would say and make sure I didn't give a knee jerk reply. I also contemplated if she didn't call me back afterwards that I would flag the review. So I wrote it up and went to check it this morning. Lo and behold it is gone. She didn't call me and I didn't have to flag it. So moral story is don't get offended. Use sound reasoning and logic. If that fails then take the next step. And even if it is not removed (but I admit, Google is catching on and removing competitors or invalid reviews) then my motto is bury it with 5 star reviews. In this case I didn't have to which was nice. Not sure what Wrote that and the difference but here it is;

"Hello ******. Please allow me first off to apologize for any misunderstanding. I take very seriously how my clients or potential clients are treated. I have talked to the receptionist and would love to talk to you and try earn your business. My son and I have been in business for 35 years and work hard to deliver quality work and customer service. We have built a good reputation in our area with the most 5 star reviews and have cleaned over 50,000 homes. I’d really like to have the opportunity to make you a satisfied client also. My cell number is 757-486-3532. Feel free to call me and I will help you in any way I can".

Robert Allen

Sorry I do not have what she wrote as it is gone now. I only have mine because I wrote it in my laptop notes so as to make sure I got spelling and any errors out before entering it. Not sure what triggered her to remove the bad review but it is nice that it worked. Maybe this could help anyone here in future.

 

[Robert86]

Well handled Rob. I'll admit I've written reviews in the heat of the moment and then took it back later after I cooled down and realized that I hadn't any reason to be upset with the company.

 

[ACP]

We got a call one time, lady wanted a cleaning on the 14th story of a downtown high rise.

I politely said that I am sorry but we are unable to offer services for high rise condos.

She goes on Angies List and leaves a big fat "F" and the comment simply said, "This service was not suitable for my high rise condo"

The one bonus of AL over Yelp is that review was taken off with 1 phone call to my account rep, with Yelp it would possibly still be there.

 

[rob allen]

Google and Facebook are realizing it's in their best interests to watch out for us business's who write their checks to make sure reviews are legit.

 

[mrotto]

Geez Im glad I don't have to worry about all those online reviews! Im not on any of those websites!

 

[PATRICK YANELLO]

Geez Im glad I don't have to worry about all those online reviews! Im not on any of those websites!

It's great to have customer flow without much of an internet presence. There are ways to do that, for sure. On the other hand, I have landed jobs because of my online reviews, no other way I could have got those customers. A bad review can be complete turn off for some seekers. Yet, if one has a bunch of high rated reviews, it must be an outlier. That's the way I view Amazon.com reviews. Just a fluke. Plus, amazon takes back anything I dont want. It's a great relationship. Customer satisfaction.

 

[Clean-n-mean]

The internet has formed a whole new level of genius IDIOTS!!!!! And I know this first hand. If they have a hang nail and they are not 110% satisfied with you, YOU are the scapegoat and are NOT doing your job...................

 

[PistolPete]

I wouldn't worry too much about one negative review when you have a vast majority of positive ones.
Most people know that there are 'those kind of people' out there and will disregard.
But I think your response was excellent.

 

[sbsscn]

I had something similar but it was not the customer who removed the negative feedback or so I dont think it was the client. I did reach out to google and explained the situation and how I felt that she was just being plain out mean! well she had left negative feedback on google and yelp but after I contacted google both review disappeared! my guess is that they looked into it and found that she was going around and doing this not only to me but to other businesses.
The story went like this

A young woman hired me to clean her 1 bed/living room apartment. I arrived to discover there was no street parking available because of street sweeping except 5 blocks away and the client woke up late and was not ready. I ended up parking illegally to look at the job, she agreed on the price and how the work was to be done (i was not to move anything except a coffee table and 2 standing lamps. she tells me to get my van and to park in her garage space, I go and wait, and wait, wait what was suppose to have taken 5-10 minutes took 30 minutes for her to finally come down, and then she made me wait 15 more minutes as she slowly drove out. finally she paid and gave me a tip before leaving me alone in her home. I cleaned the areas agreed to and didnt move furniture because it was antique and because we had agreed only traffic areas. well I do the work, finish and leave. Next Day I get a call from her eating, scratch that chewing me out! saying how dare I be lazy, and demanding why I didnt move her antique tv furniture and a fully loaded 7 foot tall antique bookcase/shelve. I tried calmy talking to her but she wasnt having it, I tried solving the issue but she ended up threatening me with leaving a bad review unless I fixed it. I offered to either go back and have her help move the furniture and clean the "missed" areas or 2 prorate the 2 areas and refund her the difference. She asked well how much? I did the math and offered her a generous $50.00 but she went silence and finally replied with Why only $50? I explained that in reality it should be a whole lot less but that I was very sorry for her bad experience and that I was trying to be courteous. She said No and asked for Half of the bill back plus the tip! I had only charged her $170.00, I told her id be happy to refund the tip too but that I couldnt refund half. she went nuts!! I asked to be allowed to refund her what was more than fair but all she kept saying was im going to leave a very bad review unless you give me more, and that she was going to make sure that I was seen bad. In my mind i was like what the hell is going on here. well she hung up and wouldnt answer my calls.
about an hour later I get a ping from yelp and it was her horrible review, calling me lazy and horrible and a bunch of mean nasty and incorrect comments, she even posted pictures of areas behind her bed, shelves that she had requested for me to leave alone.

I admit i wasnt happy and a bit worried but left it alone. 2 days later I noticed that she left a negative review on google, and thats when i started looking into her and found out that on both google and yelp she went around threatening other businesses; oil changers, tire changer, coffee shops and a cell phone repair shop, I was shocked the threats were all identical ( all businesses replied trying to resolve and a few actually giving her full refunds and free items.

Like I said I contacted google and till today the reviews are gone.