The funny thing about online review sites is…

I’m firing my car service. Unlike Mitt Romney, I don’t like firing people. Also unlike Mitt Romney, I don’t take car service very often. But, I travel a lot, and about 4 or 5 times a year the trip is long enough that it’s cheaper for me to get a car to the airport than pay parking fees. I’ve been using the same car service for the better part of ten years and, up until now, they’ve done a good job.

Unfortunately, the last two times I’ve used this car service, they’ve missed my scheduled pickup by 40 minutes or more. The first time, I’d landed after midnight and wanted to get home to bed. The second was while taking my family on vacation, causing us to nearly miss our flight. Minor annoyance, surely.

But then they really screwed up.

Their response to these mistakes has been amazing. Amazing, that is, in the sense that they don’t seem to care at all. I’ve received a sheepish “sorry, dude,” from each of the drivers.

And nothing more.

No, “How can we make this right?” No, “Please accept our sincere apology.” No call, email, letter, fax, text, or message in a bottle from management explaining the situation and how they’re going to do better next time.

So there is no next time. Not for these guys.

The worst part for them? They’ll never know why.

I’m not planning on calling them (again). I’m not planning on naming them. Or shaming them. I’m not going to write a scathing review on some site.

It’s not worth my time.

I often work with hotels who wonder about TripAdvisor and how they can handle “bad” reviews. I work with service providers who wonder about Angie’s List and how they can handle “bad” reviews. Many retailers and restaurants want to know how to handle bad reviews on Yelp.

But here’s the funny thing about online reviews: When customers tell you they’re dissatisfied, you can do something about it.

The first step in using online review sites is to learn from those poor reviews and improve your service.

Because, let’s face it, most customers dissatisfied with your service aren’t going to bother telling you (or anyone else) about it. They’re simply going to stop using your service.

Just like me.

And that’s not such a funny thing at all, is it?

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