{"id":98,"date":"2023-02-25T14:57:14","date_gmt":"2023-02-25T14:57:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/?p=98"},"modified":"2023-02-25T14:57:14","modified_gmt":"2023-02-25T14:57:14","slug":"why-negative-reviews-are-good-for-your-brand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bursucretleri.com\/blog\/why-negative-reviews-are-good-for-your-brand\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Negative Reviews Are Good For Your Brand?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I had a long conversation the other day with a friend who used to be an auto journalist about negative reviews. He told a story of when a colleague sent his (negative) review of a vehicle to the PR company behind said vehicle. He also told me a story of how someone\u2019s feelings were hurt when he wrote a negative review of\u00a0another<\/em>\u00a0car, and how a particular colleague told him that he should \u201cgo easy on them.\u201d It reminded me distinctly of my days in games journalism when I\u2019d sit down, crack my knuckles as if I was doing something important, and write a negative review of a PC game, only to turn it in and get in a little bit of trouble for being a little too nasty.<\/p>\n

This wasn\u2019t uncommon.<\/p>\n

There was \u2013 at least for the years I was doing games journalism \u2013 a genuine sense that you couldn\u2019t be\u00a0too<\/strong>\u00a0mean or\u00a0too\u00a0<\/strong>critical of a particular big publisher, though this was generally brushed aside when it came to smaller publishers, which wasn\u2019t unique to games but definitely was extremely annoying. The change that happened was that it became necessary to critique big releases, and publishers responded by delaying embargoes on reviews (IE: the agreed-upon time that you can post your review of a game, essentially an outlet\u2019s trade to get a game early enough to have a review up for release date) to the literal day of the game\u2019s release. Outlets responded by\u00a0not posting reviews on release day, letting games \u201csit\u201d a bit and having more robust reviews. A big mess, all essentially to trick gamers into buying a game before reading an honest review, or at least to stop the inevitable \u2013 that gamers might find out a game, well, sucks.<\/p>\n

The same thing happens in tech, in the sense that there are agreed-upon embargo dates to post reviews on, in the event a reporter receives something in advance, and if the thing is already released and they\u2019re simply reviewing it, the rules of engagement are oftentimes as simple as \u201cplease send it back to us when you\u2019re done.\u201d What some PR people interpret reviews as \u2013 and no, I\u2019m not going to be kind and say \u201coh they\u2019re just doing what the CEO says,\u201d because PR people apparently have working brains \u2013 is a lubed tube of positive press, a chance for a person to write something nice and get free shit because they were nice.<\/p>\n

Nuh-uh. A review is something that exists to give a critical third party statement on your product. It may be positive. It may be negative. If it\u2019s negative, they\u2019re most likely finding stuff in the thing you sent them. It\u2019s\u00a0meant to be their own subjective evaluation, because a review is an abstraction of word-of-mouth, which is inarguably the most powerful force a PR person can hope to harness.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now, if you\u2019re a PR person, you may think negative reviews are bad. The truth is that they are only bad if your product is bad, which if it is\u2026well, your product is bad, fix your product, don\u2019t release bad products. I\u2019ll get to that in a little bit.<\/p>\n

What happens far more often than I\u2019d like is that PR people take negative reviews as people \u201cbeing haters.\u201d This\u00a0is not true, you are a huge baby if you consider someone a \u201chater\u201d because of a bad review, and I wish you\u2019d stop saying it because it\u2019s unproductive to the world at large.\u00a0In your general life, if you bought something and it was bad, you\u2019d say you hated it and why you hated it. If someone does that in a review, they are doing so because they feel that the thing was bad at the thing the thing was meant to do. They are also doing so so that their readers know whether something is bad, so that they spend their money or don\u2019t spend their money on it, or something else.<\/p>\n

How To Deal With Bad Reviews (And How They\u2019re Actually Good For You)<\/strong><\/p>\n

One particular stinker of a PR firm working for MSI\u00a0recently attempted to bribe, then threaten a reporter for giving their laptop a bad review.<\/p>\n

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I don’t normally name and shame companies and their less-than-idea behaviours, but this is going too far.<\/p>\n

On Monday I posted a review of an MSI laptop, which had a number of flaws. The display was poor, thermals were terrible and the track pad felt like it was broken.<\/p>\n

\u2014 TechteamGB (@TechTeamGB)\u00a0July 15, 2020<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

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Prior to posting the review, I contacted MSI to see if they could confirm my findings. I held the review for weeks waiting for them to test a unit, but they didn’t. Instead they offered to pay me to not post the review and tried to persuade me (“only you and me know you have it”)<\/p>\n

\u2014 TechteamGB (@TechTeamGB)\u00a0July 15, 2020<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

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I declined and posted it anyway. I had a call earlier today in which they asked me to remove to word “disappointing” from the title, again I declined. I was then threatened with no more review samples or sponsorships if I didn’t comply.<\/p>\n

\u2014 TechteamGB (@TechTeamGB)\u00a0July 15, 2020<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Now, the smart money here would be to say to the reviewer \u201cyeah, your findings are correct, the trackpad is off,\u201d or put him on the phone with an engineer, or, if you know your laptop sucks, just kind of say that the things he\u2019s found are consistent with the final product. Brace yourself for impact. The review\u2019s gonna be bad. Threatening someone with no more review samples or sponsorships because they said your bad thing is bad is childish and moronic \u2013 the act of a coward and a charlatan.<\/p>\n

I can guarantee the internal conversation here branded this reporter some kind of hater, an outlier in an otherwise perfect crop.\u00a0Whenever you do this, you are hurting yourself. This is stupid. You are stupid. If they have found a legitimate problem with your device, fix that, then go back to the reviewer.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Why?\u00a0<\/strong>Because if you go back to a \u201chater\u201d and say \u201chey, we heard you, we fixed it, what do you think?\u201d you may turn them into a convert, who will absolutely lose their shit at a company that\u00a0legitimized their feelings and respected their opinion<\/strong>. You know who also loves this\u00a0the fucking consumer. Consumers are used to being told their opinions and dislikes are stupid, and that they don\u2019t know what they want.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Sidenote: yes, there are occasionally haters. They are very rare. If you are a PR person reading this and using this as an excuse to call someone a hater, I'm going to come to your house and break every toilet, I am going to leave you with no way to go to the bathroom. Next time you need to go to the toilet, you are going to have to do so in the trash<\/strong><\/em>.<\/pre>\n
Negative reviews are good for you because they show consumers that everything positive about you isn\u2019t paid advertising. Negative reviews show that you are fallible, like regular human beings, and your ability to take criticism like an adult and use it to be better will allow you to be a stronger, better company. A good company will have bad reviews. A good product will have them too. Nothing is perfect, just like the human experience, and you should be realistic about that.<\/p>\n
To conclude, I know reading negative stuff sucks. It hurts. I\u2019m not emotionless, and I recognize criticism is painful, especially when there\u2019s nothing you can immediately do about it. Maybe if you know something is a little flawed you\u2019ll take it only to certain reporters who won\u2019t, well, be so harsh on it. Maybe you don\u2019t do a big press campaign around it. Maybe you put it back in development. Depending on the product it may not be possible. But if you\u2019re working on something categorically bad, perhaps it\u2019s worth not putting it out there at all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I had a long conversation the other day with a friend who used to be an auto journalist about negative … <\/p>\n
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