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Home > Inside Guide > Business > Tips for Businesses
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Tips For Business | Business Frequently Asked Questions | Contact Us
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Congratulations! Now that you are in the game, we recommend getting personally involved in the Inside Guide - primarily as an individual and also as someone actively putting your business' best foot forward on Bakersfield.com. We've come up with this simple list of DOs and DON'Ts for business owners, and we hope you'll keep us posted on what works best.
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First the DON'Ts:
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- DON'T review your own business anonymously or get your friends to do the same. (see below for alternatives)
- DON'T overestimate the impact of a single negative review. It happens to even the best businesses. In fact, we've learned that negative reviews sprinkled in with favorable reviews often act to enhance the credibility of the positive reviews by illustrating the honesty and openness of the Inside Guide. That said, if you see a trend of negative reviews, you may want to take this feedback and determine if there is a way to improve your business.
- DON'T lash out at the people who have written negative reviews about you. Tempting as that may be, we see that backfiring in some cases as reviewers may up the ante and even engage in "vigilante justice" by spreading more negativity (see below for alternative).
- DON'T offer incentives or payment for your customers to write positive reviews about your business on Inside Guide. This sort of "shilling" often causes ill will with both current and potential customers. In addition, these paid reviews violate Inside Guide's Review Guidelines and will be removed.
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Now the DOs:
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- DO claim your free business profile on Inside Guide and consider creating a user profile for yourself, as an individual. Engage with the community (write some reviews, upload a picture, etc.). As a business owner or manager, you are a real human being, and Inside Guide is the right place to show that.
- DO make sure your business information is correct. Click on the Update profile link if you want to make changes.
- DO review your own business clearly stating that you are the business owner. Full disclosure is important here, and will be critical in earning the respect of the Inside Guide community.
- DO use Inside Guide “respond to review” and private messaging to thank reviewers for writing about your business. Consider waiting 48 hours before responding to any negative reviews as a cooling-off mechanism. Be sure to put yourself in the mindset of your customer, and recognize that your tone may come across as defensive, so tread lightly.
- DO take the feedback to heart but remember that each review is just one single opinion, and it's the entire set of the Inside Guide reviews together that really matters most.
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