How Bad Customer Reviews Actually Help You Build a Better Business

Stacy Sherman: Hello, Alicia Skubick. Welcome to the Doing CX Right show.

Alicia Skubick: Thank you so much, Stacy. I’m so happy to be here.

Stacy Sherman: Oh, I am too. Before we dive into the topic at hand, I’d love for you to share a little bit about who are you, what do you do professionally?

Alicia Skubick: Thank you so much. Alicia Skubick Skubick, I’m the Chief Customer Officer at Trustpilot and we’re the world’s largest independent customer feedback platform. I’m based in London, and I’ve been with the company almost five years and I love every single day of what I do, which is really building a universal symbol of trust for consumers and businesses.

Stacy Sherman: Ooh, that’s so well said. And obviously trust is so important in this day and age and in an AI era, but we’ll get to that. When I say doing customer experience right, what does that mean to you through the lens of public reviews and online reputation and, and trust.

Alicia Skubick: It’s interesting. I think with AI it becomes even more important. What comes to mind is some of the amazing customers we have who use the feedback every single day to make their businesses better. When you think about things like NPS, NPS is great for measuring customer feedback and absolutely it’s a tool that I’ve used throughout my career.

We kind of love our platform because it gets that feedback and it flips it externally. And so what that does is helps consumers know where to buy, the questions they should ask when they’re buying, but it also helps to make businesses even and consumers make the right choices.

Stacy Sherman: Now many companies tell me, Stacy, we’re losing profitable customers and top talent while negative reviews are influencing buyer decisions. Why do you believe this is happening? And what data or research have you seen that supports why that’s happening?

Alicia Skubick: I think it’s interesting. I think one of the questions I get asked most when I’m talking to businesses large and small, is like, how do I get started? And if I do what happens when we get all these bad reviews?

Those conversations are already happening. They’re probably happening on social media with friends, with family. And what we help you to do is get that feedback across the customer journey and then really take action on that feedback. We as a company talk about a bad review being the start of a better business because consumers really wanna see businesses engage.

I remember as a kid, my father having a tractor that broke and he went back and the place like. Took care of him, took care of the product. And he said, Alicia, that’s the sign of a great business. It’s not when you buy something and everything’s happy, it’s when things go wrong, what do they do for you and how do they help you?

And I’ve always thought about that and it’s really true. And what we’ve seen in our consumers is they really care about how businesses respond to the feedback, good or bad. And a perfect score does not mean a perfect business. And consumers really look for how do they handle that bad review?

Were they defensive? Did they take action? Have they resolved it? And that’s what really matters.

Stacy Sherman: Back to the initial point that so many clients are saying to me about losing profitable customers and top talent. Would you say that it’s the negative reviews that they’re ignoring?

Alicia Skubick: No, if you’re getting bad reviews, there’s something maybe not right in what’s happening in your business. And I think listening to that feedback and taking it seriously, breaking it down step by step to understand what’s driving that, there’s usually truth almost a hundred percent of the time.

There’s truth in those reviews, right? Something’s not going right. And what we’ve seen with our greatest customers is they go back methodically, use the tools in the product to really understand like what is the feedback, what are the trends that we’re seeing? Why was everything going well? And since suddenly we started to see a dip.

And what is that kind of through line in those customer purchasers or experiences to make that the case. And it’s the same with, um, you know, teams. If you’re measuring engagement with your teams and they’re giving feedback and have negative scores there, something’s probably going on that you wanna understand better, to make a change.

Stacy Sherman: I saw a quote and I don’t remember who to give credit to, but it takes 20 years to build a reputation in five seconds for AI to summarize it and so clearly reputation management is increasing in importance because of AI. Can you help educate our listeners like what is happening in the AI world that is making reputation management extra important that leaders have to pay attention to?

Alicia Skubick: And it is interesting, we actually at Trustpilot, don’t love the term reputation management. And one of the reasons is we often think about reputation management being something that you do when you’ve done something wrong or like celebrities in the media and they’ve hired reputation managers to like spin, you know?

And what we wanna talk about is trust, right? And in building trust with your consumers and your those experiences and really creating great experiences. And so when you think about AI, AI takes all of the experiences and summarizes those up. And so what we’ve talked about with our customers is the three Rs.

In AI search, it’s relevance, ranking and recency. And so relevance is around like the right context to the question. So, you know, people are asking, is this business legitimate? Is this a good business? What should I know about them? And so really ensuring that you’ve got the right content, you’re surfacing reviews on your, on your own website.

That structured data is really helpful to get surfaced up. And then it’s about ranking. So really thinking about when you’re doing any kind of like media stories or working with partners that they have domain authority, that ranking, which gets like the content cited.

So what we tell our customers is, invite all of your customers to review across the journey fresh, recent, relevant data will help to really ensure that the AI is surfacing up the most recent experiences of your customers.

Stacy Sherman: And I also will say if you have no reviews, that’s also a problem because AI chat GPT won’t serve you up at all. It won’t know that you exist.

Alicia Skubick: So we talk a lot with CMOs who are worried about this really rapidly changing landscape. It used to all be about SEO and paid search, and almost like more than 50% of people are using AI search now answer engines to get their answers. And so you really need to understand how that works.

And you’re absolutely right. You don’t wanna disappear by not having those reviews and that content.

Stacy Sherman: So you just said how it works. Can you peel the onion a little bit more. I think people are confused about AI as a search engine and we’re actually in a no click economy. Can you explain a bit about that from your research and understanding?

Alicia: Yeah, I think there is certainly in the way that marketers will be very familiar with SEO. It’s not quite the same, but it’s very similar in the way that you want structured data on your site. We talk about the three Rs, the relevance, the ranking, and the recency.

You wanna ensure that you are getting like fresh content regularly. Some CMOs are changing how they run their marketing teams to ensure that they’re surfacing up that really up to date fresh content regularly. Reviews are just a wonderful way to do that. And again, the thing to be really proud of is most businesses, if they’re in business, are getting good reviews.

The majority are gonna be good reviews, and if not, then there’s things you need to work on to stay in business anyway. And so it’s really just about ensuring that those reviews are getting surfaced up and that you’re using the tools that we have. For example, we have these widgets that allow you to surface the reviews on your website.

That structured data will then get pulled in by the AI search tools and things like that are helpful in terms of really ensuring that you do get shown when people are looking for you.

Stacy Sherman: It’s interesting you said that most people will leave good reviews because. I think about my work in customer service and contact centers, and nobody ever calls to say I love you.

Alicia: Yeah.

Stacy Sherman: It’s always a reaction to typically a negative experience. So I think that’s why it’s extra important to get that public positivity because you’re dealing with the negative and so you’ve gotta balance.

Alicia: And I think if you’re inviting all your customers, and we’re very adamant about throughout the lifecycle. So after they’ve purchased, after they’ve received the product, after they’ve been using the product, really make sure that you’re getting that rich feedback because absolutely.

You wouldn’t have a business if everyone was angry and complaining about it. And you want a balanced view. And going back to my original feedback, a star rating of four and a half can sometimes be more compelling for consumers. ‘Cause then they can look at a—

What were the one stars about? Oh, okay. Yeah. But look how they handled it. They like reacted immediately, gave them a refund or did this differently. And that gives like such reassurance for businesses. I myself use it regularly for those important decisions in my life. And really look very carefully at like, how did they handle that issue?

Is that a trend that they have? And it’s just fascinating as a consumer, but it gives you that confidence and reassurance as you make a choice that’s the case. And so businesses should really, I think, be more confident in surfacing that up, asking for those reviews and embrace the feedback.

Even if it does give them pause to make some changes.

Stacy Sherman: I imagine you get the same question I do around Stacy. We keep getting bad reviews, we need to delete them, and I’m like, you can’t delete them. But you can raise more of the positive emotional altitude out there to help, move down the bad. What’s your answer to those people and what are some practical steps that they can do to regain credibility fast.

Alicia: Yeah. And I don’t think it’s fast. Everyone wants a cure-all solution. We’re in the trust business and building trust takes a long time to build and you can quickly erode that trust. And I think there isn’t a fast solve. If you are inviting all of your customers, that’s the first point you’ve got to, because if you’re doing that, then you are gonna have a rich balance of like positive and negative like any business would have.

And I think it’s critical that you are ensuring that’s the case and responding to those reviews. So it’s not just about responding, but you wanna do that within 24 hours. And so when I look at our best, um, customers who have the most amazing customer service, they are responding within 24 hours.

They take action on any bad reviews and ensure that they’re making it right, that they’re solving that customer’s problem directly. And I think that’s really the heart of it. There’s no fast solve to if you’ve got a business problem, you’ve got that. That’s really helpful to know that you need to fix that problem, and then respond to it.

Take action. Do the right thing by those customers, and that will help you and keep you in good stead.

Stacy Sherman: I agree. I also need listeners to understand that there are silos in companies, probably unavoidable in every company I’ve ever been at, but you have agency regardless of job title. You need to be accountable for customer experience. And so when you see or hear the negative and the positive reviews to actually bring it to your cross teams and do something with it even if it’s not your job.

Alicia: Yeah, totally. I was a customer of Trustpilot at two other companies before I joined. I loved the product so much, I joined the company. And one of the companies I worked at prior, it was one of the things we reviewed every single week along with our

Employee metrics, our shareholder metrics. We looked at customer metrics and the number one thing we looked at was our Trustpilot rating and the reviews we’d gotten that week and the trends. And that was at a company level that was led by the GM for the market that we were in. And that was company-wide.

So everyone could see it. We could see where the issues are, and we took action on that. And I, when I look at the best practice companies that we work with, that we hold up as a company that does follows best practice, it’s often at the executive level where they look and review at that level.

And they’re cascading that through the business. And because it’s public, you can see those scores. And so that’s really meaningful in terms of regardless of silos. It really gives you that actionable insight, in real time.

Stacy Sherman: By the way, people listening, you can also see what your competitors,

Alicia Skubick: That’s right.

Stacy Sherman: What people are saying about them, and use that to your advantage.

Alicia: That’s right.

Stacy Sherman: When you think about all the different root causes behind the negative reviews, do you see a pattern, a common reason that companies are not Doing CX Right, to get those negatives?

Alicia: I think you talked a little bit about silos. I think that can often be a challenge, especially as businesses grow and get larger where they start to show their seams outside, and you can see almost on the external side how they go from department to department if you’re a customer.

So I think that’s a really good example of seeing that. It really depends on the industry. And so if you’re looking at financial services, that might be about wait times if you’re waiting for a financial decision, or it could just be in terms of the process itself, or length of time or SLAs.

So it really depends on the industry. If it’s a retail business, it’s the quality of the goods themselves. So it depends whether it’s like a product based business or a service based business. And it can be anything from supplier, a business that can change suppliers. And then suddenly you start to see a trend on a product.

And what’s great about the data that we have is that they can track it to that product. ‘Cause they can look at track reviews back to actual customer interactions and say, okay, there seems to be a trend here with this and go back to what was the root cause of that. It’s the glue that we bought, we changed suppliers and that’s causing this issue with this product.

So it’s really powerful in terms of really getting to root cause and being able to track specifically which transactions where you’re seeing the problem. So yeah, really helpful.

Stacy Sherman: Yeah. Now I have a strong view that emotions is the experience. You cannot ignore the sentiments and the way people feel, which comes out in the feedback. A lot of leaders say, Stacy, it’s not that important. There’s no real ROI to feelings. What’s your perspective around sentiments and measurements of that and the impact on revenue?

Alicia: Yeah. I think like when you think about trust and how you build trust, it’s about repetition. It’s about treating people with respect and humanity. I mean about repetition is like I trust that you will be able to do this thing for me, it’s competence and it’s repetition over time of doing what you say you’re gonna do and treating people with respect and humanity.

And so that does really matter. And when you think about service based business, where all you have is the feeling and the experience that a person has, it’s everything, right? Even an online experience, online banks, they create an emotion experience through the design of the product, through the interaction that you have.

And those like deep thoughts I always think about. In the UK we have a customer called Monzo and they do like incredible, like deep customer insights and research and they create an experience and a feeling when you use them. When a part of their brand and part of who they are.

So I think it’s really critical for building trust.

Stacy Sherman: Are there other companies that come to mind who are measuring emotions and using your platform to dive into the happy, the sad, the frustration, the anger who’s doing it right.

Alicia Skubick: I think another good example is a company called Rare Carrot. And they’ve really thought about consumer distrust around what are the barriers to buying an engagement ring online? So they sell engagement rings online, Rare Carrot. And it’s really around what are the emotions that people have around that they’ve done deep understanding of the feelings around that.

And for them, trust is it’s everything you’re talking about a high value good. And a huge amount of trust. So they’ve really thought about those journeys. What do they need to do to really ensure that they’re building trust? And they’ve really made Trustpilot a part of that with integrating like the trust boxes and the review snippets on the homepage, on their product pages and their search results, and even in their email and SMS communication.

So for them it’s at every stage of that journey, they’re trying to really build that high level of trust and thought.

Stacy Sherman: I will say, on stages that I’m speaking on, I explain like the ring example, we interact with a company and every single micro moment that we have with that brand on the phone, in person in a chatbot, we’re thinking, we’re feeling constantly. And it’s the feeling and it’s the emotion that has that lasting impact that makes us remember and say, I’m gonna recommend or not.

Alicia Skubick: Yep. Completely. It even goes back to my marketing roots and advertising and things like that. The emotional kind of conversations and ads always resonate more and have a longer memory for people who are watching it. Sort of the emotion, the memory, the storytelling and how you made people feel always lingers.

Stacy Sherman: Yeah, so we talked about measurements, net promoter score, customer satisfaction, in my mind, they’re not good enough anymore,

Alicia: Yeah.

Stacy Sherman: Obviously a trust barometer is essential. What else do you believe is the new measurements in this high tech era where we need the blend of human as well?

Alicia Skubick: I think things like CSAT and NPS have their place internally. Certainly give you a kind of sense check of what’s happening. Open platforms though, really give you that true, honest and real feedback in real time that you have to act on because it’s live and in the wild.

And the way that we’re being surfaced by the AI search engines and the LLMs is becoming more and more relevant. So for me, I think, I’m probably biased, but I think Trustpilot is one of the most meaningful ways to have that trust in the age of AI. Where you’ve got a lot of concern around AI slop they call it, and false experiences.

And then you’ve got this platform that’s just surfacing up the voices of humans and it’s so meaningful. I think it becomes more and more meaningful.

Stacy Sherman: So people often say, I don’t really know when to ask for a review. And it’s interesting to me that even comes up because they’re already collecting that promoter score results. And if someone rates a nine or a 10, you already know they’re a promoter. They already are saying to you, yes, I would recommend you to a business, a colleague, a friend.

So that’s a perfect example to then ask them to recommend.

Alicia Skubick: That we call that cherry picking. There’s a ton of legislation at the moment that’s coming through around when is the right time to review. And cherry picking is when you have ask somebody to write a review and it’s gonna be a good review because they just get on the back of NPS.

So it’s really important because in both the US and in Europe, there’s legislation around that. It’s really ensuring that the review that you’re asking unbiased, you’re not incentivizing, you are not doing it because you know that it’s gonna be a good review.

It’s on the back of the experience that you wanna measure. And we always advise at what point will your customer be able to give really meaningful feedback about the experience they had? Like sometimes if you get the request for the review and it’s just arrived that day, sometimes you don’t have time to unpack it or use it.

Best practice, especially with retail can often be like seven days after the purchase or after receiving the goods. ‘Cause then the customer has time to use the product and really experience it. But you wanna ensure that you’re asking everyone, not just the happy customers.

You wanna ask everyone involved and make sure that you’re getting the broad based sentiment.

Stacy Sherman: That’s a great point and in my mind. I was thinking a hundred percent the detractors, the passives, the net promoters for your knowledge and be able to inform future strategies. But for public reviews, it sounds like it’s the same principle.

Alicia Skubick: It has to be. It has to be.

Stacy Sherman: We are almost at the end, so a couple of rapid fire questions here. Number one. What is the most important key takeaway you want them to go do? ‘Cause this is the Doing CX Right Show Not Thinking show.

Alicia Skubick: Well start asking your customers for reviews, and when you do respond as quickly as you can, and be thoughtful and resolve those issues with them, and you will have happy, delighted customers that stay with you longer, recommend you and buy more.

Stacy Sherman: Well said and leadership. Right now it is International Women’s Month. Women leaders and male supporters. So it’s appropriate to ask you, one of my favorite questions is, what is the best leadership advice you’ve given or received over your career?

Alicia Skubick: I’ve received so much good advice, but I think one that sticks with me and I think actually resonates with this interview that we’ve had. Early in my career talking about why it was around the CEO of Symantec at the time, John Thompson, and why he was so well respected.

And it was because, and they said, Alicia Skubick, like you wanna always as a leader have a high say, do ratio. You only say what you’ll do, that you’re gonna do, and you always do it. And that builds credibility over time and that builds trust. And the best leaders always do what they say they’re gonna do.

And I think there’s so many good, I could give you a million different things that I live by, but I’ve always really felt like that resonated with me and has been an important part of my principles as a leader.

Stacy Sherman: And the final question, I’ve asked over 200 people this question, and I am excited to hear your answer, which is if you can go back in time and give advice to your younger 20-year-old self based on what you know now that you didn’t know, then what would you say to the younger you?

Alicia Skubick: I think be less afraid of failure. And take more risks. And I don’t think risks around like crazy stuff, but more just say the thing you wanna say in the meeting. Voice your crazy ideas and see if it has legs ’cause often they do. And I think that would be the one thing.

If I went back and told my younger self I would do, and I give that advice to people now.

Stacy Sherman: Yeah, and I would conclude that with saying, as a leader, you have to make it psychologically safe for people to do that.

Alicia Skubick: Yes, absolutely.

Stacy Sherman: Thank you so much for being here with us today, sharing such gems, and I will include your information, how to reach you and about Trustpilot in the show notes, and thank you again.

Alicia Skubick: Thank you, Stacy. I really enjoyed it too.