How To Deal With Negative Online Customer Reviews?

May 10, 2018

We all know that negative reviews can just happen without any warning or prediction. Some clients would anyways be dissatisfied with your service or product and therefore it can happen anytime. But, after it happens the only option for you is to bear with it. Many organizations fear taking reviews, without understanding that they are easy to manage and can positively affect your business if done right.

Every business relies on good reviews and ratings because many prospects like to study them first before they go ahead and become your customers. There are many 3rd party sites where your customers can drop their reviews and ratings. However, one must understand that it is nearly impossible to get only 5-star reviews and ratings. Some lower ratings will happen in any which way, so why be negative about them?

Above all else, we should clear a few things up:

-Negative reviews don’t mean your business is awful
-Poor reviews can really help your business
-Handling terrible reviews is simple (we’ll share a few tips below)
-An ideal approach to fight negative reviews? Get more & more positive reviews!

While nobody needs to get negative reviews, some of the time happen. Here are ten tips to manage them if they happen.

1. Don’t panic
A negative review isn’t the apocalypse- every other company has got one too. Many entrepreneurs feel annoyed or furious when they read a negative review. Again it is not the end of the world. It’s essential not to respond to a review until you calm down completely.

2. Respond immediately
Immediately reacting to negative review demonstrates the client that you give it a second thought and value their opinion. It might likewise be the reason that results in a man who had an awful experience with your business giving you another opportunity. Prompt action shows prospects that you’re focused on client benefit. Many clients who read your reviews are keen to know how you dealt with the review and what you offered. You just not need to make the grumbling client happy, yet guarantee future clients that a similar issue won’t happen again.

3. Evaluate the incident
If essential, address your staff to get their side of the story, and discuss privately with the reviewer to discover more details. Try to favor the client even it was their mistake and resolve it with their point of view.

4. Be polite
A negative review is not useful for your business, but again a rude, aggressive response from you will presumably harm your brand & reputation significantly more. While reacting openly, be polite and professional constantly. Manage the issue that has been raised, and never turn to the individual personally or insult them. The same applies to private reactions. Keep in mind, a client can without much of a stretch take your private response and post it online too.

5. Try to take the issue offline
Depending upon the issue, as opposed to reacting to an unfavorable review by leaving an open remark, it might be smarter to answer privately through email or telephone. For instance, Yelp gives business page proprietors the chance to do as such by means of email. If you’ve joined a review site, you ought to have the option to message reviewers privately. If you are not joined that review site then also you can ask the reviewer to get in touch with you offline (e.g. by telephone or email) to talk about their worry. If the negative remark is on a blog, Facebook page or Twitter, you may need to react freely and request that the writer gets in touch with you privately. If you settle the issue to the client’s satisfaction, leave a short remark in public in the general course of events

6. Empathize & apologize
Regard the furious client similarly as you would an agitated client who hadn’t reviewed negatively online: with sympathy, empathy and a real sense of duty regarding influencing things to right. For whatever length of time that it’s true, you can’t apologize enough. Regardless of whether you didn’t do whatever made them disturbing, you can in any case truly be apologetic for the way your customer feels.

7. Resolve the issue
Resolve the issue quickly, or ensure that your employees are engaged to do as such. Try not to be afraid to ask the client: “How can you make their experience better?” When you indicate you’re currently attempting to settle the issue, that demonstrates the client (and others) that you genuinely need to unravel the issue. With 84% of individuals confiding in an online survey as much as a personal recommendation, going the additional mile is essential. Not only does settling the issue make that client more joyful, but other potential clients will also perceive how important satisfying your clients is to your business.

8. Request the client to remove the negative review
Once you have resolved, apologized and satisfied the client with your resolution, you can request the client to take down the negative review. If they agree then it is great and if they don’t agree then don’t push them for the same. It completely depends on their wish if they want to take it down or not. Try to get more and more positive reviews to push down the negative ones.

9. See the Good in a Bad Review
One of the best side effects of negative reviews is the positive light they shed on good reviews.
When a business shows all of their reviews, they prove they don’t have anything to cover up. Sure, some people were unhappy, however by far most adored the product. Negative reviews are good for your brand because they show that all of your reviews are genuine. If the feedback is entirely positive, 95% of people believe that the reviews are fake or screened by the company.

10. Learn from it and try to improve
Once you have the core reason for their negative review, you can make plans to address the issues for the future. Was the service too slow? Did they experience a shipping delay? Did the service or customer service not up-to-the-mark? Did we extend the deadline?

Thank the customer for leaving feedback even though it’s negative. To guarantee that they don’t return to compose yet another awful review, complete on your promises.

Engaging your clients to review your organization and set aside the opportunity to respond to them influences clients to feel esteemed and needed. Individuals jump at the chance to see that organizations think about their feelings & opinions and take them seriously. An ideal approach to putting out the fire of negativity is by handling the client (and the situation) in a classy, professional manner with courtesy, understanding, and patience