While looking for consumer reviews for a particular company my search actually brought me to an online forum that revolved around the company’s specific services. It appeared that on top of just regular people asking each other questions about the best company and services the business owners themselves in many cases were active participants. I suppose that can be good as you are pretty much guaranteed to get official responses pretty quickly.
Then I read one comment from a customer that gave a business a bad review. Funny enough, they even mentioned in their review that they are aware that the owner was active on the forum and so he welcomed him to correct anything in which they felt was wrong. While the owner did indeed respond, his competition then chimed in with many expressing how they would have handled the situation. As you can imagine, this resulted in debates where as the person from the outside it’s interesting to see how one composes themselves where that could be a sales factor in choosing a company.
But that makes you wonder, is it a good idea to be that active on a public forum where every word you say will be looked at under a microscope? That’s usually why a lot of big companies or even celebrities often try not to get too involved in heated discussions publicly as an example. I can see for smaller businesses this can be good as usually that is the benefit to do doing business with one as you expect a more personable approach.
As you get bigger though you do have to wonder whether or not competitors would take advantage of that if the person happens to have an off day per se.