Can Businesses Start Reviewing Customers Now?

I have a proposal.

And before anyone gets nervous, no, I am not proposing anything illegal.

Probably.

I simply think that if customers are allowed to publicly review businesses, businesses should be allowed to review customers.

Fair is fair.

Imagine it:

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ — Fantastic customer.

Arrived on time, read the instructions beforehand, brought everything requested, communicated clearly, and treated our staff like actual human beings. Would absolutely serve again.

Or:

⭐⭐ — Would proceed with caution.

Did not read a single instruction we sent, arrived with an entirely different understanding of the service than the one advertised, became angry about the imaginary service they thought they purchased, and requested a manager approximately 47 seconds after arrival.

Tell me you wouldn't read those reviews.

Because I would.

Religiously.

The Internet Has Given Us Entirely Too Much Power

Here's what has been bothering me lately.

A person can interact with a business for ten minutes, have a bad experience.... or sometimes simply feel like they had a bad experience.... and immediately pull out their phone and publish their version of events for thousands of people.

There is no mandatory cooling-off period.

No little pop-up asking:

“Have you spoken with the manager?”

“Are you currently angry?”

“Do you possess all relevant information?”

“Would you like a snack before permanently documenting this moment on the internet?”

Nothing.

Google just hands you five little stars and says, essentially:

Go forth, emotionally compromised citizen. The keyboard is yours.

And that's wild when you think about it.

Because reviews matter.

People read them before choosing restaurants, contractors, veterinary clinics, hair salons, mechanics, nonprofits, doctors, and just about everything else.

One person's ten-minute interaction can influence whether hundreds of other people ever walk through that business's doors.

That's an enormous amount of power.

And sometimes that power is absolutely warranted.

Some Businesses Deserve Their One Star

Before anyone comes after me with a pitchfork and a Yelp account, let me be very clear:

Legitimate negative reviews are important.

If a business advertises something and doesn't provide it, say so.

If an employee treats you terribly, say so.

If you were charged incorrectly and nobody would fix it, say so.

If something unsafe, unethical, dishonest, discriminatory, or genuinely unacceptable happened, people deserve to know.

Businesses should be accountable.

We screw things up.

Employees have bad days.

Systems fail.

Things get forgotten.

Sometimes a business deserves to hear, “Hey, this sucked.”

And sometimes management desperately needs to know because we cannot fix a problem we don't know exists.

That's not what I'm talking about.

I'm talking about the increasingly popular sport of:

“Something irritated me at 2:14 p.m., and by 2:22 p.m. I shall destroy this establishment.”

That is a different activity entirely.

Somewhere, a Manager Is Finding Out About Your Problem From Google

This is the part that absolutely blows my mind.

Sometimes the person who could have actually fixed the problem doesn't even know there was a problem until the review appears.

Maybe you spoke with a receptionist who didn't have the authority to make the decision you wanted.

Maybe there was a misunderstanding.

Maybe the price was entered incorrectly.

Maybe an employee forgot something.

Maybe the service you expected isn't actually a service the business provides.

Maybe (and brace yourself for this radical possibility) ....two human beings misunderstood each other.

It happens.

Yet instead of saying:

“Can I speak with someone who might be able to help me resolve this?”

We've somehow jumped straight to:

“I SHALL NOW ADDRESS THE INTERNET.”

Meanwhile, the manager is sitting in an office eating the same sandwich they've reheated twice because they haven't had time for lunch, suddenly receiving a notification explaining that apparently their entire organization is incompetent.

Fantastic.

Good afternoon to you, too.

There Are Actual People Behind That Logo

This is especially hard for me because I work in the nonprofit world.

People see a business name.

A logo.

A building.

A Google listing.

What they don't see are the humans behind it.

They don't see the employee who has been on their feet for nine hours.

They don't see the person who stayed late yesterday.

They don't see the staff member quietly fixing a mistake before you ever knew one happened.

They don't see the grants being written at night, the budgets being stretched until Abraham Lincoln is begging for mercy, the fundraising, the paperwork, the training, the equipment repairs, the insurance, the payroll, the compliance requirements, or the approximately 74,000 tiny things required to keep an organization functioning.

They just see their interaction.

And that's understandable.

You're the customer. Your experience matters.

But your experience is one chapter. It isn't necessarily the entire book.

You'd Be Amazed What Happens Behind the Scenes

I work in veterinary medicine, so I can tell you firsthand that there are approximately eleven billion things happening to make one seemingly simple appointment work.

You might pick up your cat and think:

“Great. Fluffy got surgery.”

Meanwhile, Fluffy may have spent the day starring in an entire medical drama.

Maybe the paperwork said Fluffy was a black-and-white male and Fluffy arrived as an orange female.

Excellent start.

Maybe Fluffy decided confinement violated several provisions of the Geneva Convention and required accommodations.

Maybe we discovered the carrier contained seventeen blankets despite repeatedly asking people not to bring seventeen blankets, and Fluffy was approximately three minutes away from establishing her own tropical climate.

Maybe we removed Grandma's Special Blanket because the cat was overheating.

Maybe Grandma's Special Blanket accidentally ended up in the laundry.

Maybe we washed Grandma's Special Blanket.

Maybe at pickup we forgot Grandma's Special Blanket because we were simultaneously returning animals to twenty other families.

And suddenly:

⭐ ONE STAR. THEY STOLE MY BLANKET.

Ma'am.

We performed surgery on your cat today.

Nobody is running an underground blanket trafficking operation.

Please call us.

We will look for the blanket.

And Then There's the Secondhand One-Star Review

This phenomenon deserves its own scientific study.

Because sometimes the person leaving the angry review wasn't even there.

A customer goes home.

They tell their spouse what happened.

The spouse tells their sister.

The sister tells her boyfriend.

And somewhere during this game of emotionally charged telephone, someone who has never stepped foot inside the building decides:

“Not on my watch.”

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ keyboard warrior mode activated.

Suddenly we're reading a review from someone whose closest involvement in the situation was receiving a text message about it while standing in line at Publix.

This is where I start questioning our entire review ecosystem.

Meanwhile, Positive Customers Are Adorable

The funniest part is the difference between happy and angry reviews.

An angry person will write:

Chapter One: The Betrayal

followed by 1,700 words, three allegations, four dramatic plot twists, a call for the business to be shut down, and possibly a recommendation that Congress investigate.

A happy customer?

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “Great people. Thanks!”

And you know what?

We LOVE YOU.

Truly.

Those five stars and six words can make someone's entire day.

Because while angry experiences tend to inspire immediate typing, happy experiences usually end with people simply… going home happy.

Which is wonderful.

But it means online reviews don't always represent the proportions of what actually happens inside a business.

One person may be furious while hundreds quietly received exactly what they needed.

Nobody writes:

“Everything happened exactly as expected today. I have no additional notes.”

Although frankly, I'd frame that review.

Businesses Can't Really Fight Back.... And That's Probably Good

Here's another strange part of the equation.

If a customer writes something inaccurate, a business has to be incredibly careful responding.

Because if we respond emotionally?

“UNPROFESSIONAL BUSINESS ATTACKS CUSTOMER!”

And honestly, that's probably a good standard.

Businesses should maintain professionalism.

We should have restraint.

We should respond with facts.

We should try to resolve problems instead of winning internet arguments.

But there is a weird imbalance when one side can say virtually anything while the other side has to respond like we're negotiating an international peace treaty.

Customer:

“THESE PEOPLE ARE MONSTERS.”

Business:

“Hi Susan! 😊 Thank you so much for sharing your feedback. We are sorry to hear that your experience did not meet expectations…”

Meanwhile, behind the computer:

Susan, you brought us a rooster. We are a dentist.

Obviously that's an exaggeration.

But spiritually?

Every business owner knows exactly what I mean.

Maybe the Question Isn't Whether You Can Leave the Review

Maybe it's whether you should leave it yet.

Before hitting “Post,” maybe ask yourself:

Did I try to resolve this?

Did I speak with someone who actually had the authority to help me?

Do I know what happened, or do I know what I think happened?

Am I describing facts or interpreting someone's intentions?

Am I trying to warn other consumers about a legitimate issue?

Or am I trying to punish someone because I'm angry?

Because those are very different things.

A review should provide information.

It shouldn't be a weapon.

Local Businesses Are More Fragile Than People Realize

This matters even more with small businesses and nonprofits.

These organizations don't magically appear.

They are built over years.

They scrape together money.

They borrow money.

They apply for grants.

They beg for sponsorships.

They stretch payroll.

They repair equipment instead of replacing it.

They find creative ways to provide services people can actually afford.

And yes, sometimes they screw something up.

Because despite extensive efforts by management everywhere, we have been unable to completely eliminate humans from the workforce.

Humans remain stubbornly human.

They forget things.

They misunderstand things.

They occasionally have terrible days.

Accountability matters.

But so does proportionality.

A mistake does not automatically mean an organization is terrible.

A disagreement does not mean someone is dishonest.

A policy you don't like does not mean the employee explaining it created the policy specifically to ruin your Tuesday.

And an unresolved problem isn't necessarily an unresolvable problem.

Sometimes you just haven't given anyone the opportunity to fix it yet.

So Yes, I Still Want Customer Reviews

I'm mostly joking about creating a website where businesses review customers.

Mostly.

Because I can already imagine it.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐“Wonderful human. Patient, kind, asked questions, laughed with us when things got chaotic. Please come back anytime.”

⭐⭐⭐⭐“Very nice. Did not read instructions. We recovered.”

⭐⭐⭐“Challenging start, but communication improved. Would cautiously serve again.”

⭐⭐“Arrived angry about something that happened elsewhere. We somehow became responsible.”

⭐“Threatened to leave a one-star review before receiving the service. Completed the review while still standing in the lobby. Impressive efficiency.”

But beneath the joke is something I genuinely believe.

We need to remember that businesses aren't buildings.

They're people.

Customers are people, too.

We're all walking into these interactions carrying stress, responsibilities, expectations, grief, exhaustion, financial pressure, family problems, and whatever fresh nonsense life delivered that morning.

Sometimes the business is wrong.

Sometimes the customer is wrong.

Sometimes everybody is a little wrong.

And sometimes something simply went sideways.

Before we publicly try to damage someone's livelihood, organization, reputation, or life's work, maybe we should give each other one increasingly rare thing:

the opportunity to communicate.

Ask the question.

Call the manager.

Clarify what happened.

Give someone a chance to say, “You're right. We messed that up. Let us fix it.”

And if they refuse?

Well…

Google will still be there.

The stars aren't going anywhere.

But maybe wait until after you've had a snack.