our opinions : ADVICE FROM AN EXPERT
In The Comfort Zone
When Five Stars Don ’ t Equal Excellence
By Brett Hobson CEO Comfort Experts
NOVEMBER 2016 PARKER COUNTY TODAY
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We ( Comfort Experts ) have a five-star rating on Yelp and our company is winner of the Malcolm Baldridge Award , which has been awarded as one of the Best Places to Work and has the best ratings from the Better Business Bureau .
All of these designations are great for companies to strive for . In the past , people would ask their friends , neighbors and the people they worked with , which companies were good , which ones were reliable , trustworthy and fair in their billing practices . Now , with our increasingly busy lives , we ’ ve started relying on a few key strokes or taps on our mobile phones to help us make big decisions that can sometimes cost us thousands of dollars . And we ’ re taking the word of people we ’ ve never met or who may not even exist .
Let ’ s take , for example , Yelp . Don ’ t get me wrong , I like Yelp and rely on it often when I ’ m in an unfamiliar city and looking for a good place to eat lunch . But lately , I ’ ve become much more of a connoisseur of their reviews . The restaurant around the corner has a five-star review . Great , I think . Then I drill down into the reviews and it makes me wonder . They only have five reviews , but all of them are five stars . The reviews use the same words , a different order , but the same words , same punctuation . The grammar is correct and there are no misspelled words . Everyone loves it , and no one has any complaints ? The restaurant isn ’ t new , but they only have five reviews ? Are there any reviews from people in the business ’ area , or only ones from out-of-towners ? Does the review read like a brochure for the business ?
If it does , it probably is . There are public relations people and freelance writers who are getting paid by the review to post positive reviews ( and some negative ones too ) on social media websites . Everything from Facebook to Yelp . As for me , I was just looking for a quick place to grab a bite to eat , so even if I went to this restaurant with the phony reviews , it wouldn ’ t be life-altering if it didn ’ t work out — just a bad lunch . The same can ’ t be said for service providers that you call to care for and service the parts and pieces of your family ’ s single largest asset – your home .
Yelp , other social media sites and apps like it use algorithms to determine what you see when you are looking at reviews and comments about local and national businesses . Yelp specifically uses something called “ recommendation software .” This is from Yelp ’ s business-side website that describes how it recommends reviews . “ We use automated software developed by our engineers to recommend reviews from the Yelp community . The software looks at dozens of different signals , including various measures of quality , reliability and activity on Yelp . Most of all ; however , it ’ s looking for people who are intrinsically motivated to share the wide range of rich and detailed experiences they have every day with local businesses .” Hmm , doesn ’ t sound like when you and I write and post a review it is posted on the website or app in a timely way to help friends and neighbors make decisions . It ’ s up to the recommendation software to determine what shows up on Yelp and when .
And back to the bad reviews . Every company is going to have one or two . Even we do , and we make a concerted effort to connect with those customers . We then do everything we can to turn their negative experience into a positive one . However , as a business owner , I would much rather take the irate phone call at my office and try to solve the problem immediately rather than have it follow us forever on social media . And I encourage our customers to also post positive reviews , not just for us , but for all businesses that you have dealings with . I know how much we appreciate those . We make it a big deal at our office when a tech or one of our office staff gets a positive mention .
At our company we used to use written , paper customer surveys to let us know how we are doing . I told everyone in our company that if the building ever caught on fire that book was the one thing I would save . I still feel that way . But now , I save the great reviews from our great customers both on paper and online . We see them as the backbone of our business . And if you ’ re not happy , please call . We ’ d like the chance to fix what ’ s broken .