Do you want more loyal customers for your business? Or, Are you unable to hold onto your customers for a long time? Has to handle negative customer reviews become a challenge for your company? If the answer to any of the questions mentioned above is a yes! Then it is time to realize the power of reviews.
Customer reviews impact real business outcomes and prospective customers’ choices about whether or not to do business with a particular company.
It’s typically not difficult to respond positively to favorable reviews, but negative feedbacks often become the real challenge to deal with. However, you can even use the bad online reviews to your advantage, they may surprise you, and if handled with proper care and diligence, they may even do more good than harm for your business.
So how do you achieve this? Well, we have accumulated 17 tips that can simplify handling negative reviews.
17 Tips To Handle Negative Customer Reviews
1. Check To See If The Review Is Genuine.
Check to see if the review is from a real person. You may report suspicious reviews on legitimate internet review platforms. Sites like ReviewFoxy, for example, allow users to flag fraudulent reviews.
If you receive a review that you suspect is fraudulent, don’t hesitate to report it. False accusations or negative reviews can often be deleted by approaching the review site and following their instructions, usually available in their help section.
Suppose you’re uncertain about the legitimacy of a review and think that the review may or may not be genuine. In that case, it’s best to consider it legitimate and answer it with a positive attitude.
2. Quick Response
People don’t usually make the effort of writing a review until and unless they are exceptionally unhappy with the service or product. That is why if the reviewer has taken the time to write feedback online for you, then be as quick as possible in writing a response back to them.
If you wait a long time, it may make the customer even angrier, as they may think you don’t care enough about your customers.
This can make the problem even more significant than it was initially. To avoid all this, it’s better to respond to the comments as quickly as possible, as it will make your company look more professional and ethical.
3. Respond With Care
Feedback in any form, negative or positive, plays an essential part in the success of a business. The feedbacks that come to you in the form of reviews need to be responded to immediately, as your prompt response to the reviews makes the customer feel valued and makes them understand that the company is apologetic for the problems they faced.
The negative reviews also help your management and team members understand the areas in which they can likely make changes to avoid future complaints. Make sure that in your response to the review, you thank the reviewer for their efforts and then ensure that you will take steps to ensure they never face the same problem again.
4. Respond Honestly
Flaws are accepted because nobody is perfect. Your company also, just like anybody else, is allowed to make mistakes. But by being genuine, insightful, and speedy with the replies to the negative comments, you can quickly turn those mistakes into lessons, which can help you serve your customers even better.
It would help if you made transparency your goal. Then even the reviews and your customers will appreciate your honest answer to their complaints, making them trust you more as a business owner.
This will help you in making long-term relations and also help you retain dissatisfied customers.
5. Make It Respectful And Compassionate
Sometimes, some reviews get exceptionally personal and hateful, but even in this situation, you need to keep calm and stop yourself from stooping low. The company’s brand image is more important than replying to an individual rude customer. Display the behavior you want your company’s employees to maintain with a customer.
Apologize for the issues the customer might have faced and consider their dissatisfaction. Remember that being rude to one or two customers can cause damage to your brand image in the long run.
6. Make Each Response One-Of-A-Kind.
Everyone wants to be heard, and no one likes it when their complaints go in vain. The customer writing the review intends to impact not only the company’s management but also the prospective clientele of that organization. They do so to ensure that the problem they face gets solved and no one else has to go through the same thing they had to bear.
To satisfy the reviewer, show them that you care by giving them proper attention and hearing them out with empathy.
The best way to approach them is by giving them a personalized reply. The text can include your acknowledgment of the situation and the measures you are willing to take to solve the issues faced by the customer.
7. Don’t Let Things Get Personal
Give insightful and unique responses, but at all costs, don’t get personal, and never please ever attack the client on a personal level.
Similarly, if you know, the customer who gave the review and knew their conduct or review is not rightly placed. Still, handle the situation gracefully like a business with more to lose and mitigate the problem calmly.
8. Switch To An Offline Mode
When dealing with negative reviews, an essential best practice is to move the conversation offline as quickly as possible. The goal is to simplify shifting communication offline without crossing any lines.
Don’t try to persuade the dissatisfied consumer to contact you. Obtain their contact information, inquire about the best method and time to correspond, and express regret for their dissatisfaction with your product or service.
Going offline with the conversation will allow you to understand the problem faced by the client in detail, which will result in a more personalized solution to their problem.
9. Be Grateful And Sincere
Every piece of feedback is beneficial for the business. You need to show that you are grateful that someone took the time to give you feedback, even if it was unpleasant, and acknowledge that they are still allowing you to make things right.
Proper mitigation of negative reviews can be an effective strategy to retain customers. The worst-case situation would be that the scorned customer will never interact again, but with proper interaction, the chances of that customer becoming a loyal client are way more.
You need to accept the review for whatever that’s worth and ensure the customer that you are striving to improve the company’s shortcomings.
10. Go The Extra Mile
While going above and beyond isn’t always necessary, it almost always helps. This could differ based on the nature of the problem and the extent to which it affected the reviewer. Sometimes apologizing is insufficient. Put an extra effort to demonstrate that you’re not only sorry but also that you want to make things right and win the person’s confidence.
Giving a peace gift could be the first step in the right direction. It also doesn’t have to be pricey to persuade a once-critical reviewer to change their mind. Think about what would matter to you as a customer and go innovative.
Even something as basic as a personalized video or image could improve not only the reviewer’s perspective of the organization and how it runs, but it will also likely have a long-term impact on many other customers.
Especially in these days of social media, don’t underestimate the power of word of mouth. All you have to do is go the additional mile, and you’ll almost certainly make an impression.
11. Work On Ways To Resolve The Problem And Communicate This To The Customer
Customers want to be heard and know that their opinions matter to the company in question. Take all reviews seriously and seek similarities in critical ones to find meaningful methods to improve your company.
Please take what you’ve learned from these reviews and apply it to the employees interacting with consumers and making decisions that affect them. As a result, the necessary reforms will soon become visible.
Describe to your clients and other stakeholders how your customers’ feedback impacted your business, and recognize the hidden positivity in every critical review.
12. Touch Base With The Reviewers Who Left Negative Feedback
Negative reviewers should always be followed up with. Ascertain that their problem has been resolved and that they are satisfied with the result of this process.
If they are satisfied and haven’t already, request that they remove the unfavorable review.
It doesn’t always happen, but a person will often remove a negative review because they believe they were taken seriously and that their complaint got a satisfactory resolution.
13. If Required, Provide Reimbursement For The Inconvenience
When a poor review is made, offering reimbursement is not always essential. However, there are situations when it is very much the case.
Suppose a person has suffered financial or personal harm due to some shortcoming in your company’s product or service. Then reimbursement, at the absolute least in the form of a money-back guarantee or any other form, is the very least a company can do to appease a dissatisfied consumer.
14. Motivate Your Customers To Provide Feedback
The simplest method to ensure that delighted customers submit positive evaluations is simply asking and encouraging them to do so. Positive and negative evaluations work together to develop a firm’s image.
Every firm will receive both positive and negative feedback. However, if you want to maintain high credibility, consider the strength of reviews and good business practices.
Satisfied customers need to be encouraged to leave a review. This can be done by sending request messages or service follow-up calls to them in which they can be requested to leave reviews on famous review platforms such as Google, Facebook, Yelp, and other popular sites. They can also leave a review on industry-specific sites that affect the brand image in your market segment.
15. Learn About The Workings Of The Review Websites
Businesses must also understand how product rating or review sites work to comprehend the influence of reviews properly.
Not all platforms are used for a single reason. Multiple platforms can serve your company in many different ways. Learn how each platform works and which site is helpful for which section of your brand image.
Few websites are especially suitable for business reviews in line with consumer engagement and business reputation, while others may give a general review of the company.
16. Seek The Removal Of Any Reviews That Are Deceptive or False
The false-negative reviews are not always the fault of the company. It is often the competitors, or sometimes occasionally, a previous coworker who has a bone to pick with the company.
It may even be a potential consumer who never converted into a paying customer who tries to vent their frustrations on the business for any possible reason.
Most of the review websites that are famous for their authenticity have terms of service agreements prohibiting these types of false comments. They can be quickly deleted if reported to the platform’s administration department.
17. Keep An Eye On Your Internet Presence And Image
The only sure way of keeping on top of all criticisms is to keep an eye on your web presence.
By doing so, you’ll be able to implement all of the previously discussed strategies for dealing with reviews, ensuring that your company is well-positioned for online and offline success.
To Handle Negative Customer Reviews: Summing It Up
Negative reviews are inevitable, so always recheck with your clients as soon as they employ your services. The only way to reduce the frequency of bad reviews is to resolve the problem before they leave a poor review.
Take feedback from your client. If your consumers are pleased, ask them to leave a review on a website. By filling your web presence with positive evaluations, your negative reviews won’t stand out as much.
And don’t be alarmed if you get a negative review. Take this chance to learn, grow, and demonstrate to the rest of the world that you value your customers’ experiences.
Lastly, claim multiple company business listings so that you can cater to different audiences and make the most out of your online presence. Claim your listing over ReviewFoxy and thousands of other businesses using it for customer reviews. And the cherry on the cake? It’s absolutely free!
