Legally Speaking: Not Fun, Definitely Necessary. Avoiding Legal Issues with Guest Heather Macklin

I, I have a question for you.

You know, home improvements, home services, when we're in some, when we're in somebody's home, things don't always go as planned.

I mean, let's just say we try to make it go as planned all the time, but every once in a while it doesn't go as planned.

And then every, every once in a while, we have that one customer where when something goes sideways, they don't just want a discount, they, they want a free house, right? You, you gotta now buy them a free house because we broke their house.

Uh, you're an attorney.

How, how should I think about that as, as a business owner?

You know, I think that, y- you know, if you're, if you're a good contractor, and you know, I know as you were, Brian, when, when you owned Tunderland, you know, you wanna make the customer happy.

And so there's this, there's this immediate reaction of, you know, the customer's always right.

We need to make them happy.

We don't want any bad reviews out there.

Um, you know, that, I think that's the first visceral reaction, right? It's like we stand behind our product.

Somebody's unhappy, we can fix it.

Um, and then secondarily, we don't want any bad reviews because people will look at those reviews, and we don't wanna turn away other customers or clients because of this, this one problem.

Um, and then beyond that, I think is, is another layer, which is, um, you know, well, what are, what are we potentially liable for, right? And this person's thrown all these terms at us.

"Oh, I talked to my lawyer, and I did this and that, and you owe me all this money." And, and in the moment it seems like, oh gosh, we have a huge liability here.

And, and, you know, look, sometimes there might be.

But, um, number one, the customer isn't always right.

You know, customers, they get it wrong.

Um, there are bad people out there.

Unfortunately, sometimes we all get caught up with somebody who's just a bad person, and you gotta deal with that.

Bad reviews, you know, I don't think a few bad reviews are all that bad, right? I mean, if I see a business that's got nothing but five stars, you know, 300 five star reviews and not a single negative review, I'm thinking to myself, "Those are either manufactured reviews, or they're somehow managing their reviews in a way that they're able to knock out any negative ones," right? And it doesn't feel real.

Because in today's world, there's always gonna be somebody who's gonna give you a ding here or there.

It's, it's how you respond to those negative reviews that I think is, to the reasonable, rational consumer, is more important than the review itself.

And sometimes those negative reviews, honestly, you read them and you kind of laugh and go Really?

[laughs]