What do your clients say about you that you don't know?

While most are aware of Yelp.com, InsiderPages, and CitySearch for user reviews...you may not realize that your clients are also writing about you on blogs.  Sometimes it is good....sometimes it is bad.  Here's one not so good example on a blog.

Ouch.

While the Internet might seem so vast and uncontrollable to start to worry about how you'll ever keep track, it also has the wonderful search services of Yahoo and Google.  I particularly like Google Alerts where you set up a search on a few key words and you'll get an email when any new pages are posted with those terms.  For example, I have alerts for my name "Heather Gallegos" and "day spa."  I get a ton of listings for day spa, and one or two a week for my name.  You can set it for a weekly email or daily email.  If there are no postings about your alert -- there is no email.

I suggest you set an alert up for your name and your business name. List the full alert in quotes (e.g., "skin deep day spa" or "barry bonds") so you don't get all the celebrities with your first name.  [I learned this after seeing all the posts for the plethora of actresses named Heather in Hollywood.]  You may also consider doing alerts for your top competitors as well to keep abreast of what they, or their clients may be posting online.

To get started [it's free!] set up a Google account and sign up at Google Alerts.  If you get too much or stuff you aren't interested in, narrow your alert search terms.   Or cancel it at anytime.  It's meant to be helpful and not a hinderance to your productivity. 

Comments

[Heather Gallegos]

I agree -- it was a negative review that I didn't feel was deserved either. Per an updated comment, it looks like the owners actually contacted her and made nice (which shows magnanimous customer service in my mind.) Some of the other commenters defended the spa, too.

Not sure anyone noticed - but that spa is in the Philippine's. Late clients and undeserved bad reviews happen every where. :)

[Jaya Savannah]

OMG, that blog post about Big Apple spa is really irksome! The woman was 15-minutes late. She was told in advance that she'd lose her appt after 10-minutes.

And obviously, she's clueless that the fact that if they *did* start her massage late, the spa would also take the double hit of paying employees for the already-missed downtown, as well as forcing them to stay even later.

That spa is lucky to lose such a horrible "customer."

LOL...did you notice that her blog describes itself as "suggestions on saving from a frugal female" ?

==> If this happened to one of my clients, I'd recommend that they post comments on her blog--in the spas favor. Heck, I'm kinda tempted to do that myself! I feel that they've been wronged!