Article Contributed by Torri Myler
Word of mouth has always been one of the strongest forms of advertising for any business. With the proliferation of online review sites, it is easier than ever for people to go online and rate their experience with your business… good or bad.
Most people admit they’ve been influenced by reviews at one time or another when making a purchase. This underscores the need for every business to take their negative online reviews seriously.
Positive reviews are more common than negative ones but the negative ones can have a disproportionate impact on your business. Here are a few ways that you can handle those occasional bad reviews and possibly even turn them around to your advantage.
Don’t react right away
Especially after a particularly scathing or unfair review, you are probably going to feel like hitting back hard right away. Don’t. Take your time and give yourself a moment to calm down. Responding in the heat of the moment could cause you to say something that could reflect even more poorly on your business. Prospective customers won’t be keen to do business with someone they think is a hothead and prone to attack.
Evaluate whether it deserves a response
There are negative reviews that don’t rise to the level of deserving a response. For example, reviewers who use offensive language, who seem irrational or who are prone to complain can be safely ignored. If you come across a bad review that expresses genuine concerns, they definitely deserve a response.
Look into their concerns
If a reviewer cites a particular incident, you should do a little research before responding. You can always contact the reviewer privately and ask them for further details, if necessary. Be sure to make it clear that you are trying to resolve their issues positively and want to prevent any further instances.
Petition the site to remove inappropriate reviews
Occasionally, businesses will find that their competitors have gone online and left false negative reviews. If you can prove that it is a false review, most sites are happy to remove the feedback. They may even ban the false reviewer.
If you find a review that contains a personal attack or profanity, this could also be grounds to have the review removed.
Try to see their side of it
Before you respond, it can be helpful to take a moment and try to understand your customer’s point of view. That will help you respond from a place of compassion rather than striking a defensive position.
How to respond
When responding, you can follow this general format that has proven successful for other businesses:
Introduce yourself to the reviewer.
- Thank them for giving you their business.
- Express appreciation that they took the time to provide feedback.
- Apologize sincerely that they were unsatisfied with their experience.
- Sum up your understanding of the situation. (You can do this without automatically admitting fault.)
- Offer your solution to resolve the problem.
It’s important to always keep your communication — whether you respond publicly or privately — as polite and professional as possible. A harshly worded response to a negative review will always backfire. Be as constructive as possible and demonstrate that you take their concerns seriously.
Learn from it and move on
After you’ve dealt with the review to the best of your ability, you need to take what lesson you can from the experience and then let it go. Some reviewers will remove or update their poor reviews after having a positive experience, but others might not. Continuing to obsess over it won’t bring you any positive results, however.
The nice thing is, a good response to a bad review can help improve your businesses standing in the eyes of other potential customers.
Author’s bio: Torri Myler is a team member at http://www.bankopening.co.uk/ – a UK bank branches’ opening and closing times directory. She combines her expertise in community management with her passion for writing.