I am planning a vacation for later this year. And, for the first time I am booking the rooms online.

We are flying to London and there are a HUGE number of hotels to choose from. So, I started looking at the review on TripAdvisor. One hotel in particular had a four star rating, was reasonably price, for London, and was near where we wanted to stay. It had a great website looked like exactly what I wanted in a hotel. But was getting hammered in TripAdvisor.

There were a lot of possible reasons for the bad reviews. Most noted that the hotel was undergoing renovations. This was a legitimate reason for some bad reviews. I was looking for some comment by the management explaining the problems and what they were doing to improve the situation.

NADA!

I was tempted to email them and see what the problem was – but, in the end, decided if they were not interested in their reputation, why should I be. I booked in another hotel. Only a three star – but with good reviews.

Sites like TripAdvisor and Yelp can’t be ignored. If you are providing a service you need to be aware of your online reputation. There might be reasons for bad comments. You need to explain your position. If there was a problem – you need to tell people what you are doing to fix it.

Tracking your online reputation isn’t hard. Google “your business name” plus “reviews” will get you all theinformation you need.

Don’t ignore bad reviews. Someone was so disappointed with your service that they took the time to post their comments. Think of all the people who didn’t post a comment but will never deal with you again.

Even if you think the comment was unfounded – take the time to write a reply.

Tags: business, reputation, Social review sites, vacation planning

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