Sucky Businesses Should Not Do Business With Search Marketers

Readers of this collection of hypertext may recall my tale of woe in dealing with a San Jose Auto Repair shop who done me wrong last year.  The subtitle of that little missive was “A lesson in reputation management” and the subsequent flames that sprung up on various local reviews sites showed how rubbing someone the wrong way, particularly someone with a rudimentary understanding of how social media works, is probably not a good way to get the good word out about your business.  (BTW, thanks to FrankOB for coining my new moniker, the “Flat Tire Guy”.)

Anyhow, I just came across a similar story from Jonah Stein about a Berkeley Toyota dealer that did his wife wrong.  In this case it sounds like the Steins were treated shabbily by the dealer and the dealer ultimately decided not to do business with them because he was afraid the Steins would trash him in their customer satisfaction survey.

Maybe search marketers should have to disclose what they do when they enter into a customer service situation.  Then again, maybe businesses shouldn’t treat customers poorly and then provide disincentives to make it right.