How to stop bad reviews from snowballing

The first cut is the deepest, and it turns out, so is the first online review you receive.

A negative first review can not only reduce initial sales but cause damage long-term too.

So, what can you do if faced with poor reviews?

The first is the worst

Why would identical vacuum cleaners get a trickle of mediocre two-star ratings on one retail website and a flood of glowing 4.7-star ratings on another?

That’s what researchers Park, Shin and Xie sought to find out in their study “The Fateful First Consumer Review” (2021).

Analysing consumer reviews for identical toasters, vacuums and digital cameras across two retailer sites, Best Buy and Amazon, they were able to identify that the first review a product received was the key to how well it was reviewed ongoing.

A good first review? The product received a greater number of reviews and they were more likely to be positive.

A bad first review? Fewer consumers were willing to purchase it, which meant fewer reviews overall, thwarting the opportunity for redemptive reviews and spiralling the product downward.

Think of it as a snowball effect.

The information people see first is overweighted in importance. This sets the expectation, which gets amplified as more people choose to either buy the product (in the case of positive reviews) or avoid it (thanks to a negative review).

Sweating that first review is imperative. As the researchers note, instead of worrying about your average rating, your primary concern needs to be that very first review because it can make or break your product’s fate.

The good news about bad reviews

Receiving bad reviews is not all bad though, and in fact can strengthen a consumer’s commitment to purchase.

It’s called the “blemishing effect”, named by researchers Ein-Gar, Shiv and Tormala in their study “When Blemishing Leads to Blossoming: The Positive Effect of Negative Information” (2011).

In short, negative information that is introduced after an initial positive impression makes people pause and reflect on their decision.

Any flaw seems minor relative to the positives and people end up doubling down on their first impression, intensifying their commitment.

Some important caveats around this, though.

The negative information has to be weak: By “weak” the researchers mean bad news that is not central to the value offered by the product or service.

For example, a restaurant might have great reviews for its food, music and atmosphere but a review mentions a lack of parking. This is negative information but not necessarily make or break.

The positive impression needs to be made first: As we saw with the snowball effect, where you live and die by your first review, order is everything.

In the case of blemishing, it didn’t matter if the negative information was the last people received as long as it wasn’t the first. They’ll be okay with lousy parking if they’ve first been impressed with the great food reviews, in other words.

You can’t make them think too hard: The blemishing effect relies on people being only partially engaged; they may be tired, a little distracted or have a low care factor.

They are primed to go with their first impression and will happily do so as long as they are not given a glaringly negative reason to rethink their decision.

Tips for dealing with negative reviews

Control the sequence. Make sure the first review you receive is a positive one because this will set the tone.
Don’t catastrophise. Negative reviews are a fact of life and can actually bolster how truthful and open you are perceived to be.
Respond quickly. Acknowledge the bad review as soon as you can so they don’t stew on it and escalate through social media.
Be confident. Try to correct any mistakes you might be responsible for but don’t pander to unreasonable demands that may undermine how others see your business. Avoid being overly defensive. You can acknowledge it was their experience without inadvertently normalising it.
Move offline. Try to take complaint handling offline and deal with the customer directly so you don’t get into a public slagging match.