Taking on the world from Gore

The power of the consumer has never been so great in the digital age. With fingers tapping across a keyboard at lightning speed the ability to judge, and judge quickly can happen faster than you can say TripAdvisor.

The downfall of having an oldfashioned rant compared with tapping out a critical message is that in the digital world it lingers for all to see.

And that can be the downfall for any business.

There’s no doubt that some disgruntled customers globally deliberately send messages in the hope a company will take swift action and perhaps cough up some goodwill to compensate.

If you think this doesn’t happen, don’t kid yourself, companies can and are being held to hostage via social media and keyboard warriors.

Companies are getting very savvy about how they handle social media and responses.

The best advice is to respond quickly and explore what can be done, try a bit of humour followed by ‘‘don’t feed the trolls’’, as in don’t keep engaging with negativity on social media.

Already Southlanders are quick to understand the ‘‘rules’’ of social media, especially those running Airbnb businesses.

One slightly negative review could be the difference between solid bookings to no bookings for anyone in the hospitality industry.

Yet, in Gore, rightly or wrongly the Gore Motor Camp manager is taking a novel stance and fighting against his bad online reviews.

In an odd way you have to admire a manager who is very clearly trying to have his say.

If there was ever a clear example of giving someone the right to defend themselves, here it was this week as Gore manager Lyndon Copland fired back at the people who wrote negative things about ‘‘his camp’’.

Are the reviews deserved? Is there substance to them? Well at the end of the day that is between the guests and the manager.

Is firing back online the best way to run a business? That also is up to the owners to resolve.

There’s an old saying that goes along the lines of ‘‘if you don’t care of your reputation, others will’’, and you may not like the results.

There’s no doubt Copland took a stand and stood up for himself. And why shouldn’t he?

That stand, even though it came in the form of tapping out replies from Gore back out to the world, in a strange way deserves to be applauded. Okay, it may have inflamed the situation more, and possibly didn’t make the most of a united ‘‘Welcome to Gore’’ message but doesn’t every man, woman and child have the right to defend themselves?

And, every now and again, so what if your dirty laundry gets viewed by the neighbours.

Granted the difference here, is a little spat goes global, but in a roundabout way you have to admire the gumption of someone not prepared to take criticism without having their own say.