Statistics show that it is normal behavior for people to express their negative experience more often than their satisfaction. How many of us go to a website to express how happy we are with a new hairstylist or the new family-owned restaurant across the street? Probably not too many of us!
The need, want and capability to express negative reviews is growing rapidly and the virtual world is only adding wood to the fire. There are many websites and social media platforms that allow businesses clients, customers, and members to express their opinion and experience: from your
Facebook company page, to your online shopping website, to
Yelp. Although uncontrolled (which some people would say is the negative side), these reviews can provide you deep insights that can be crucial for maintaining a good relationship with your stakeholders, customer satisfaction, and product quality.
Tellwut conducted a survey on
this topic and asked over 1000 businesses and employees if they check what their current and former employees say about their business on these social networking and business review platforms. The responses were really surprising!
- Over 30% of the participants did not even know that websites like this existed.
- Almost 30% answered that they use these websites, but more than half of those do it rarely.
So, I decided to provide some insight on how businesses can benefit from websites like
Glassdoor, and
RateMyEmployer that are created to provide an inside look at jobs, career opportunities, and how the business is run.
However, this has gone even wilder. Now, your own present and past employees can rate you as a company, review your business environment, and quality of work with the "small" difference that this time is not through a private link sent to their e-mails or anonymous pen-and-paper review.
It’s Public and it's Popular!
Many current and past employees have the need to vent and share their experiences with their companies and the world and help others to make better decisions when they look for a job. Previous and current employees talk about their work environment, management, compensation, interview processes. They rate businesses through stars or points and comment in uncensored open box.
Although this may be dangerous or even detrimental for your businesses brand and workplace culture, your business can benefit from these “reviews”. Reading them regularly and taking steps to correct unknown issues is a way manage the number of beatings your company may take online. This is an excellent way to react to the notion of your present and future employees about your business and by listening to what they have to say you can improve your operations, employee moral, and even increase productivity and revenues.
Current and past employees sometimes add not only their frustrations but include their positive comments as well. Business owners/managers can take notes to maintain their positive sides and ease their burdens by assessing themselves and making more constructive decisions.
So, businesses beware – you are more exposed now than ever before!
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