to tell how to phrase the apology.

However, not all complaints are legitimate. It sometimes happens that customers become so enraged, they solicit their friends to post additional negative reviews.

This happened to Lewis Bec of California Horizon Pool & Spa in Los Angeles, California, who said he had a customer and her friends slam him over made-up issues.

“I addressed it very politely and told her on Yelp that I would be more than happy to come over and look into the issues she claimed. To her friends I made it clear that I had never worked with or for them in any capacity and that if the homeowner had any issues, I would be happy to resolve them,” Bec said.

At the end of the day, Bec’s response to the review resulted in attaining additional customers, who were so impressed with Bec’s professional response that they hired him.

This is why it is so important to develop a strategy on how to handle negative online reviews. Bec’s situation was a classic case of turning lemons into lemonade.

Sometimes what appears on the surface like bad publicity is actually an opportunity to create a better public image.