In the “good old days,” when neighbors or work colleagues told you how much they enjoyed a nearby bed-and-breakfast, movie or restaurant, it mattered. Word of mouth has always been one of marketing’s most potent weapons. Today, we have word-of-mouth marketing on steroids with online reviews.

Interestingly, in a wide range of surveys examining the effectiveness of online reviews, the data is pretty telling. Depending on the research, somewhere between 84 to 90 percent of us trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation.

Nearly nine out of every 10 consumers have used online reviews to influence a purchase, and about 40 percent of us use them on a regular basis as part of our buying process. Most people read between six and 10 reviews, and usually read the most recent reviews first.

Why do we give perfect strangers the same credibility score as our neighbors and friends?

We believe in the aggregate. One bad review suggests a fluke or that someone had a grudge, but when there’s a pattern, we’re willing to believe the crowd.

We assume that the reviewers are people like us who have no ax to grind but just want to be helpful. 

We give more credibility to the “average Joe” than we do to marketing or corporate spokespeople. In other words, I want to hear what other people say about you, not what you say about yourself.

Given both the number of consumers who rely on the online reviews and the level of trust they put in them, it’s not something businesses can ignore. And this isn’t just about restaurants or hotels anymore. Whether you’re a dentist, a restaurant, an ad agency, a professor or an insurance agent, between Angie’s List and all the specialty lists out there, everyone is being rated.

Interestingly, businesses seem to be adopting a head-in-the-sand approach to bad reviews.  Even though almost every rating site will allow the proprietor to respond, very few do.

That is a huge missed opportunity. Every business owner, chief marketing officer, etc. should be tracking where their business is being rated and monitoring those ratings. Although the ideal is that you’d respond to all the reviews (odds are there are not that many), you should at the very least react to the negative ones.

Here are some best practices for responding to negative reviews:

Apologize. Use the words “I am sorry” to acknowledge that the reviewers had a bad experience, even if you don’t believe it was your fault.

Refer to them by name if you can.

Identify yourself by name and title, so they know who is responding to them.

If there really was a problem, don’t sugarcoat it. Admit that you blew it and what you’re doing to make sure the next guest does not experience the same thing.

After your initial response, if they reply, take it offline. Even though you want everyone reading the reviews to see that you care, you don’t need to play out the entire conversation online.

If you feel like you can win them back, offer to compensate them in some way. 

Talk like a human, not a corporate committee. Use conversational language so they know there’s a human being behind your comments.

No matter what you do, ignoring negative reviews is not an option. They are too influential to your prospects, and when they go unanswered, they’re taken as gospel and can chase away potential business. So settle in and try to make some lemonade out of those lemons.