Customers have always had many ways to express their dissatisfaction with a company’s product or service. But the Internet and social media have made it easier than ever for to get opinions heard. And that makes your customers very powerful–like it or not.

The instantaneous, uncensored feedback that the Web offers every consumer scares the crap out of a lot of companies.

And it should.

In the past, the process of complaining was really slow. An unhappy customer could report a company to the Better Business Bureau or file a complaint with their state’s Attorney General’s Office, but they were lucky to get a reply a month or so later.

Another option was to write a letter or an email to the company’s corporate office. They might respond. They might not. In my experience, small companies were usually better at responding. Large companies rarely cared to waste their time–they had enough happy customers to deal with.

Today, customer feedback has evolved with product reviews and ratings all over the Internet for any consumer to voice their opinion or rant about a bad service experience. And there are many who blog about companies they like and don’t like. And they have a following. Groups of like-minded people are listening to them. Formulating an opinion about companies that they have no relationship with yet.

That’s exactly why, if you have unhappy customers, you should encourage them to talk to you so that you can solve the problem.

The best way to combat negative reviews is simple: sell a great product or service at a good price and have exceptional customer service to back it up.

Let’s say you have all that, but some vocal customers who caught you on a bad day when the product didn’t ship as fast as you promised or your customer service rep kept them on hold too long are calling you on it.

Apologize and ask how you can make it up to them as soon as possible.

Don’t wait for the negative review to appear in an on-line forum or in a product review. Be proactive. And treat every customer like they have a thousand friends ready to buy your product and if you can win them over, then your prize is the chance to win their friends over too.

Seems simple doesn’t it?

Too many companies remain short-sighted on the long-term effects of a bad customer experience and look only at the immediate cost of giving a customer something free or a discount on their purchase. Sure, you could try to save your company a few bucks and not to offer money back or free product, but then how much money are you losing on their repeat business and relaying to friends how you went above and beyond to solve their problem?

Don’t risk it.

I read this great article called 23 facts you can’t ignore about customer loyalty and customer satisfaction. The numbers quoted in the article are powerful and shouldn’t be ignored.

A great example of good customer service is Apple. A friend of mine bought an iPhone and it just stopped working properly one day. She cherished this phone and took great care of it, so it was disappointing that it was malfunctioning.

She took the phone to the Apple store where she bought it, so they could run a diagnostic to see what the problem was. They did and it turned out that her phone likely had water damage–which Apple does not normally cover because dropping your phone in a puddle is understandably not their problem.

Now, my friend did not drop her phone in a puddle and told the Apple rep that. Although I’m sure many people would lie about this, she wasn’t. She also told them what a loyal customer she was with purchases of several iPods over the years and a recent purchase of a MacBook Air in addition to her phone.

Customer Service listened to her and decided that she was too good of a customer to disappoint, so they gave her the benefit of the doubt and offered to replace her phone.  For free.

My friend had her new phone within days and has told countless people about her great experience with Apple.

I can imagine this ending much differently with another phone provider. What would your company do?