Pretty much anyone can post a review about almost anything. You like a book? tell people; waiter was lousy? tell people, after-care was spot-on? tell people.

All this lovely sharing and advice works just fine for helping you make up your mind, it’s become an integral part of the buying process for many, and provides enough content for review sites to make a decent living for themselves.

That’s the “nice” bit covered. So what if you’re the one who’s had a bad review? I don’t mean the company you work for, or the colleague you covered for, or the product you boxed and shipped, I mean You. A bad review isn’t nice but it can be useful, if you take ownership of it … and taking ownership means doing something about it.

There’s two obvious ways of dealing with the situation:

1. Seek out the online instances of this bad review and try to bump it down the SERPs by creating fan pages, groups, microsites etc etc etc.
2. Seek out the reviewer, engage with them and try and fix their problem- or at least behave in a caring way and offer some sacrifice showing that you do really care what they think of you.

The first method can work, it needs “managing” though, in the way that oil companies manage their PR, or governments manage their leaky secrets. It requires a little cunning, some technical expertise, a willingness to do whatever it takes. Overall it can be labour intensive, so might be farmed out to say an SEO or online marketing bod.

The second method also works, it requires that you manage someone’s expectations, and it can’t be farmed out- it needs you to take control, and ownership, and be the person to admit the mistake and make amends.

Neither are “easy”, but that’s subjective. What’s easy for someone who is open and frank will be nigh on impossible for someone who fears being openly accountable and publicly humble. That person will deal direct with the reviewer, and their problem.

What’s easy for someone who prefers dodging bullets and tinkering in the background is anathema to the person with a conscience. They will divorce the bad review from the person who wrote it, and deal only with the fallout.

So, there you have it, an easy choice; to deal with people or deal with their boxed-off problems.
I know which I prefer.