Every small business that sells a product or service is going to get a bad review sometime. The key is how do you respond?

Do you get angry? Do you call it a fake? Do you ask the review site to take it down? Do you respond with real empathy and a solution?

This is what one of my favorite retailers, SCOTTeVEST did.

Scott Jordan,, CEO also wrote this to the customer:

“Dear Mr. Norton,

I wanted to apologize to you regarding our experience with our product purchased through Amazon. I just learned that my prior President was not honoring our company’s 2 year warranty for items purchased through Amazon. He decided that our warranty only applies to items purchased on our website.

We have since re-evaluated that policy and decided to honor our warranty for purchases made on Amazon or our website.

It is important to note that we have greatly improved our zipper quality, and use only the best zippers from YKK and/or SAB, both quality zipper makers. But since our products have a lot of zippers, and that is the only moving part on the garment, if something will fail, it is likely to be a zipper issue.

We have been in business for 19 years, and stand behind our products. To that end, I would like to send you a new eVEST. Please confirm your size and address.

I am doing this because it is the right thing to do. If after you get the replacement, you are happy with the product and quality, it would be appreciated if you could amend your review, although you of course are not obligated to do so.

We are contacting everyone who has expressed similar issues on Amazon to make things right.

I hope you can forgive us for our poor judgement. We sincerely appreciate your business, whether on Amazon or directly on our website.

Thank you so very much for giving us a second chance.”

What I love about what Scott did was that he personally reached out to this customer and many others by writing an email and making a personal video apologizing, making it right by sending a new product and asking, if the customer is then happy, to amend the review. Everybody wins here!

What I also liked is that he is not differentiating to a customer that buys SCOTTeVEST direct or through channel like Amazon. In this retail environment, you simply can’t.

The customer should not be penalized based on which one of your distribution channels they purchased.

Do you know how to make the customer experience right?