High cost of bad online reviews

Cincinnati: A negative review or comment on the Twitter, Facebook or Youtube websites can lose companies as many as 30 customers, according to a survey by Convergys Corp.

A customer review on one of the sites reaches an average audience of 45 people, two-thirds of whom would avoid or completely stop doing business with a company they heard bad things about, Convergys said.

Web and video posts are feeding a new form of “silent attrition, where customers switch companies without complaining directly,” Frank Sherlock, senior vice president at Cincinnati- based Convergys, said at a conference in London.