The impacts of negative online reviews on business reputation / Ramli Saad, Wan Shahrul Aziah Wan Mahamad and Yong Azrina Ali Akbar

In today’s customer-centric environment, keeping consumers is the centre of a business’s marketing strategy. A company’s reputation depends greatly on the interactions between customers and the company and how others see the interactions. One way of interaction is through reviews and ratings on review websites, which help businesses in acquiring customers, increase conversion rates, promote brands, and take extra steps to boost productivity and revenue (Ray et al., 2021). In the present Internet era, online reviews are one of the best ways to advertise a product and build a company’s reputation in the contemporary industry. It allows customers to express their opinions about your business and direct customers to your brand or to your competitors. This happens whether the product in question is brand new or established, as well as whether the brand in question is well-known. The reviews and ratings on review websites help increase trust which has a positive relationship with the brand’s reputation. Also, according to Huang (2022), the level of consumer trust and the brand’s reputation are two crucial factors that can affect a company’s long-term success. On the other hand, negative remarks can harm a business. Monitoring customer online feedback is important to maintain a positive reputation and to make sure that a brand is appropriately represented. According to Halim et al. (2022), unfavourable content review increases negative customer attitudes, upsets subjective norms and behaviour control, and decreases purchase intention as approached by the theory of planned behaviour (TPB). In addition, negative online reviews have a significantly greater impact than favourable online reviews on customer attitudes towards service providers and purchase intents. Also, negative online reviews are said to impact crucial indicators, including customer loyalty and retention, business profitability, and brand reputation. Thus, this paper further discusses the impacts of negative online reviews on a business’s reputation.