Can bad reviews be helpful?

Whilst reading Alex Hawkinson's latest blog post I had my attention drawn to an argument I've discussed on here before; whether or not bad reviews can actually be helpful and productive? The example, taken from a recent CNN article, was that of Alpaca Direct, who were looking to maximise sales by allowing customers to leave reviews of products on their site. Of course some reviews were in fact negative but strangely enough this seemed to increase sales, with the products in question selling at a rate of 23% more.

Now whilst this is an extreme case, it does highlight a valid point (at least I hope it does!) This particular company had decided to take negative feed back into account and were benefiting from it. Gathering insight from all parties gave the site a balance, establishing a trust with consumers and crucially improving the product in the process.

Although easy to sit back and take the plaudits, just listening to the positive aspects of your service is extremely naive and extremely counter productive. Monitoring how the media reflects your company and how the consumer perceives your company is surely a crucial factor in deciding future strategy. As Gordon Brown is finding, if people don't like you, it's very easy to get lost in a world of criticism. The trouble is he's ignoring it, which ultimately seems certain to be at his cost. In the case of Alpaca Direct, the more target intelligence the better.