INSIDE
DECEMBER/JANUARY 2017 BCBUSINESS 59
The Grand Canyon had better pull up its
socks. Reviews are in, and they're not good.
Mother Jones magazine recently col-
lected a series of one-star reviews for
America's national parks. In addition to the
thumbs-down for the Canyon (not enough
for day-trippers to do, the reviewer said),
there were one-star pans of Yosemite ("Ter-
rible experience... unable to -nd parking
ANYWHERE") and Yellowstone ("dull")
among others.
Nancy Peterson has words of reas-
surance for the poor Canyon. Peterson
launched her home renovation review
site HomeStars.com in 2006 when the
consumer feedback industry was still rela-
tively young (Yelp was only two years old
at the time). She thinks people—and pre-
sumably parks—worry too much about the
occasional complaint. "I think everybody's
just got to get a thicker skin, just take nega-
tive feedback and not be so worried about
perfection if you're doing great work day
in and day out and you're proud of what
you're doing," Peterson says.
Still, consumer feedback sites have
changed the retail landscape in ways that
were hard to predict when HomeStars
launched. Companies that once focused
on direct consumer interaction, advertis-
ing and marketing had to include a new
focus dealing with online feedback.
Everyone's
a Critic
ILLUSTRATION: KAGAN MCLEOD
Online reviews hold
businesses to account.
But who can you
believe?
by Steve Burgess
Frank Giustra gives heat in the kitchen ... Holts shoppers get sated ... Herschel goes to China + more
D E C E M B E R / J A N U A R Y 2 0 17
"It's always a mad scramble at the
end, so that's when I solicit every-
body to help. They really enjoy get-
ting involved. I yell at people–and
they enjoy being yelled at"–p.61
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