The Truth About One-Star Reviews

The dreaded one-star review is something that every business hopes to avoid, but no one truly can. The majority of us rely on reviews of a business to decide if we should interact with it, but what does that really mean? Every business will inevitably receive a one-star review, and this can discourage customers from working with them. In this post, we will discuss one-star reviews and how we handle them at Arthouse.

What A One-Star Review Does Mean

When people see a one-star review, they immediately question the business. That’s fair, right? You are reading reviews because you want to know if the business is worth your money. We work in the tattoo industry, which comes with a certain degree of permanence. We aren’t offended that you might want to double-check with someone who has actually worked with us, but there are a couple of problems with that.
A one-star review is someone’s opinion. If you’ve ever tried to get everyone to agree on one restaurant in a group, you will understand the problem. One-star reviews indicate that someone had an unpleasant experience. However, it is important to remember that some people take issue where others do not. A one-star review can happen when someone doesn’t like the professional response that they receive and perceive it as rude because they didn’t get what they want. It can happen when someone doesn’t like policies or the way a business operates. Then there is the other group: trolls who have never even been to the business. The point is that not all one-star reviews are written fairly.

What A One-Star Review Does Not Mean

Even though someone might have been unsatisfied with their experience, it does not mean that you will. Some people are simply very difficult to please. Others get upset with the pricing offered by a business because they don’t agree with it (newsflash: tattoos are expensive). There are plenty of reasons for a business to receive a one-star review and not all of them are directly related to quality or service.
When you see a one-star review, you probably think: oh no. It’s that dreaded moment, right? It’s the time where you realize that a business that looked good isn’t actually good. In reality, that isn’t what a one-star review means. A one-star review doesn’t mean that a business is bad. It just means that someone, for whatever reason, wasn’t feeling it. And, you know what? That’s okay.

How A Business Is Supposed To Manage One-Star Reviews

According to prominent services like Yelp, any one-star review must be addressed by the company. On this, we agree. However, Yelp has a little more advice. They think that the only appropriate way to respond is to apologize profusely for any transgressions and offer up a chance to make it better. In some instances, this is completely appropriate, but every time? We’re not so sure about that.
For a corporation, this kind of policy makes sense. They need time to find out who was involved and what actually happened. For a small business, that isn’t the case. We know what happened, and we know the truth about it. This means that we can address it immediately, but it does not mean that an apology is always in order. Small businesses are pressured to cave to the whims of any customer in order to build up their brand. At Arthouse, we don’t believe in this kind of philosophy. You might be shocked to hear this, but the customer is not always right.

How We Manage One-Star Reviews

At Arthouse, we have a pretty strict honesty policy. We love our clients and we try to be as transparent as possible. This includes being open and upfront about our practices within the shop, as well as in the online space. Honestly, we don’t believe that every one-star review should be met with an apology. If anything, we consider this approach to be dishonest. Sometimes, an apology isn’t in order, the truth is.
When we receive a one-star review, we always take the time to evaluate it. We review the situation and consider the customer experience. But, sometimes, we know who wrote the one-star review the moment that it hits. Why? Because we dealt with the client that day! The majority of our clients are absolutely amazing people and we love every minute that we get to spend with them. Some of our clients, however, aren’t that pleasant.
When we see a one-star review from somebody that we know gave our staff trouble, we always respond with the truth. This means that we will tell our side of the story. If you treated our staff poorly or expected services that clearly aren’t offered, we will mention this in our response. We don’t do this to shame people for bad behavior. We do it because there are two sides to every story and ours matters just as much as yours does.

Why We Do This

There are some people who don’t really understand our responses to reviews. Many people think that it would be easier to just let the good reviews outweigh the bad reviews. While we understand this, we just don’t agree with it. We believe that people look at reviews to be informed. If they read a review that is blatantly filled with lies or just designed to make us look bad, we owe it to our current and future customers to address it. In fact, we think that more businesses should do this. It is an honest practice that helps us to keep customers in the know.

Conclusion

Every once in a while, a bad review will pop up. As a team, we take every measure that we can to ensure that our customers enjoy their experience with us. We are proud of the work that we do and proud of the amazing staff members that help our customers to feel welcomed every single day. We know that we aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but let it be known that if you give us a bad review, we will make sure that everyone knows truth about the experience.