Running a business means that you need to interact with customers regularly. Most of the time, these will be positive interactions, with good feedback from them. However, there are also times when things don’t quite work out the way you hope despite your best efforts.
Receiving bad feedback on your service, product or overall customer experience is not something you will want to see associated with your business. However, the good news is that they don’t have to be the end of the world. To help you to see the positive, we have put together our guide to what you need to do about bad reviews online.
Never be defensive
Of course, it is normal for you to feel protective over your business, especially in the face of criticism, but this doesn’t mean that you should feel the need to become defensive or angry. Responding to someone in this way is never going to be good. It can leave you looking unprofessional in front of other customers and leave you in an even worse situation.
It is a much better idea to take the time to get your thoughts in order and to calm yourself down before you get to reply to a bad review. That way, you will be approaching it with a level head.
Don’t ignore them
It might be tempting to put your head in the sand and simply ignore any negative reviews that you get for your business. But this is not a good idea. You want to make sure that you are being seen to try and resolve any issues that someone has had.
This will be good for those who are looking at your review, as they will see that you care about feedback. But, it will also be suitable for the person who has left the review. You can go back to them and clarify a solution or simply acknowledge where things went wrong.
Avoid trying to cover it over with positive reviews
Positive reviews are something that we all want to get, and there are plenty of ways that you can encourage people to leave them for you. However, you should never try to cover your negative reviews with a barrage of positive ones.
Not only will this be annoying to those who you are begging for reviews, reducing the change of return customers. But, when other people see this happening, they will think that you are not being genuine and that they should take the bad review as your usual level of service.
It is a much better idea to try and stay as positive as you can. Acknowledge the issue that the person has highlighted within their review and apologise for the service that they received. Remain neutral and calm, and show your business in the best light.
That way, despite the negative review, those reading will see that you take your customers seriously and that you have done your best to make sure that the same issues don’t happen again in the future.