Negative reviews suck.
Whether you’re a writer, a Youtuber, or a business owner, seeing a negative online comment can feel like a punch in the gut. Not only do these negative comments put a damper on your mood, they can also damage your reputation. But you aren’t powerless to angry people on the Internet! We believe that with the right approach, you can easily turn your bad reviews into opportunities to attract loyal customers.
Customer Service is a huge part of the overall experience that customers associate with your business. In fact, 82 per cent of customers have stopped doing their business with a particular company because of their negative experience. Everything from rude staff to untimely responses for inquiries to specific issues that go unresolved count as poor customer experiences.
There is a lot of lemonade to be made from those bad review lemons. In this post, we take a look at how you can respond to those negative reviews and build a glowing online reputation for your business that will keep people coming back again and again. From Facebook comments to product reviews, we’ve put together a social toolkit that will help you handle even the trickiest of situations.
Don’t Ignore it. It won’t go away.
Once you notice a negative review, your first instinct should be putting together an informative and courteous response as quickly as possible. This is a crucial window of opportunity and speed will always be your ally. Believe me, we have had our fair share of negative responses from clients that were unhappy with all the changes we made to become a better service provider. The initial reaction is always to ignore it, but you will quickly learn that only makes matters worse. It doesn’t disappear and won’t get resolved unless you be proactive and do something about it.
Keep an eye out on social media outlets and review sites to get a head of the problems before they spiral out of your control. Regularly monitoring customer reviews and comments will not only minimize the damage of negative feedback, but also help keep a finger on the pulse of your audience.
Professional and Public
Negative reviews can hurt, especially when you’ve put so much time and effort into your business. When responding to your customer feedback, you need to keep your cool and avoid taking the complaints personally or shifting the blame.
What does this mean?
No arguments. No excuses. No insults.
Being polite and courteous goes a long way to calm an irate customer and to display to your audience the consistent level of customer service not matter what happens. Everyone screws up, but don’t let your mistakes define you. Take ownership and respond to the complaint publicly. This is a great opportunity not only to show the affected customer that you’re willing to publicly take responsibility for their experience, but also to showcase to the rest of your clientele that you are business that who not only values their customers, but transparency and accountability.
Know the Difference between constructive criticism and hate
There are many different types of comments. Some come from generally respectful people saying why they disagree with your reviews or are dissatisfied with the level of service. Others come from people who just spew anger and hate without offering anything constructive. These types of comments need to be handled very differently. Constructive criticism should be viewed as a tool from which you should respond and learn from. Hate, on the other hand, would be in your best interest to not acknowledge and do your best to eliminate or neutralize.
Set your website or social media platform so that comments don’t appear until you approve them. This system discourages people from writing hateful, unconstructive things because they won’t get the instant gratification of seeing them published right away.
Of course, comments that are negative but also constructive should be approved. It shows your audience that you are willing to take feedback.