Reviews - they can be damaging in some cases.

Small businesses rely heavily on reviews to spread the word and become sustainable... whether that's a word of mouth passing comment or a publicly posted detailed review of an experience or product. 

What this means, however, is that intentionally negative reviews done as part of a smear campaign can really impact a business in the opposite way - drawing away potential custom, resulting businesses losing money, and also a loss of trust between the business owners and their consumer. 

We've experienced this ourselves unfortunately. 

Now, don't get me wrong, if someone gets a product from us or comes into the shop for their lunch and they report honestly back to us that it wasn't up to standard or if there's something we can do to make it better, we listen intently and do what we can to rectify the problem. Criticism is welcome, as it makes us improve, and it's absolutely a given because no two people are the same so what one person loves, the next person will not. Sometimes we get it wrong because we're not robots, we are human, and human error is a part of our DNA.

That being said, intentionally trying to smear a small business to further an agenda or create a completely false narrative, is not a given and should absolutely not be allowed. 

There are two times that come to mind for me, where we've had someone write a review without even trying our products or stepping foot into the eatery, and another from a well-known local magazine who later recanted their review when we were able to send CCTV evidence to the contrary of what they had said. 

A couple of years ago we unknowingly welcomed a journalist from a magazine into the eatery, at our busiest time of year, Easter! They received a very good service from us (which I could relive on the cctv footage. 

What I later read in this magazine - shocked me to my core. It was a literal lie and reflected so negatively on our business. We knew that this would damage not only our reputation but the trust we had grown and built within our local community, and it was imperative to me to have it removed as soon as humanely possible. I spent days eagle eyeing our CCTV footage to corroborate what they'd said, as I wanted to address it if it came to be true, but it showed nothing of the sort. This all got sent over to the magazine and the article was redacted. It was taken down but couldn't be unprinted. The funny thing is, if I name the magazine here, or detail what was said to the point it could identify said magazine, then I'd be done for slander, yet they were able to publicise completely false information to push their own agenda without any Repercussion whatsoever, not even an apology. 

Then there was a local business who, wanting to push their own newly opened business to the top of the Trip Advisor list, intentionally slandered our business online writing multiple reviews with negative content... all the while, never actually stepping foot in the shop or trying/buying any of our products. The reviews were concocted as lies, no truth behind them whatsoever. I confronted them and they removed their own reviews, but Trip Advisor didn't follow suit and they stayed there for the world to see. Still yet to receive an apology from them either. 

I don't think people grasp how seriously damaging things like this can be for small businesses. How they can literally break a business by doing it.... though I'm also not entirely sure that people care. And I think that's the saddest thing of all.