PT3: Handling Negative Reviews
Part 3 from the report
The 5 Critical Components of
Online Reptuation
When you see negative content or reviews about your business online, it’s important that you act quickly. There’s a saying, “Silence is consent.”
Many review sites such as Yelp let the business owner respond to reviews. The longer you wait to respond, the more potential customers see the negative review and believe it’s a true representation of your business.
Your goal in handling an upset customer should be three steps:
- They turn from upset to satisfied
- They post positive things about you and rebut or remove their negative remarks
- You learn something about your business that will improve it and help to avoid future negative reviews
But first, is the Criticism Legitimate or Fake?
Unfortunately, there is a small subset of people online who think it’s fun to leave bad reviews about businesses. If you find this to be the case, resist the urge to respond in anger.
Instead, demonstrating concern and wanting to discuss the specifics of their encounter will go a long way towards showing other potential customers that you are interested in their feedback and want to improve the situation.
Empathy is a powerful tool, and being sincerely concerned with their bad experience is a trait that every business owner should have.
In the case where you’re dealing with someone who simply wants to hurt you, be very selective with your response. If the insult is small, a simple apology will do. As the insults escalate, you must be careful with your reply.
Sometimes, the customer is clearly wrong because they expect too much for too little. Fight the urge to call them unreasonable. Instead, say something like this:
“[Briefly restate the problem, don’t copy and paste it. Show you‘re listening] We are very sorry you feel that way and will do everything within reason to resolve this. If you will contact us, we would like to work together to find a solution.”
If the complaint was legitimate, they may contact you. If they are simply being obnoxious, you will likely never hear from them, but at least you were professional in your reply and those who read the review will hopefully see that you were trying to be helpful and address the situation directly.
Be Transparent and Honest
Under no circumstances write fake reviews or ask your family, or worse, employees to write reviews for you.
These tactics are almost always found out and will do your online reputation more harm than good.
If the Negative Comment is True
- Don’t ignore or hide (it won't go away!)
- Open a dialog. Get it offline if possible
- Participate in the discussion and be honest
- Add response to your website
- Issue statement addressing what's been done to correct the problem
- If it's serious, get help Seek out an online reputation management expert
If the Negative Comment is False
- Post a professional response
- Politely ask for the comment or review to be removed
- Post a response on your website
- Find or create positive content about your business and use search engine optimization to get it on the first page of Google
- Consult an attorney
You need to have a response to negative reviews, even the ones you suspect are fake. It's not about them, so much as it's about the person who is reading them while considering using your business.
So what should you say?
Give them a way to reach you directly. The best is to send them to a contact form or your main business phone number, rather than posting your email address or cell phone number. Placing either of those anywhere on the internet is an open invitation for spam and other harassment from entirely unrelated third parties.
How can social media help your reputation? Part 4: Use Social Media to Grow Your Reputation is going to answer that very question.
