How to Deal With Negative Reviews on Your Online Business
It’s a known fact in the business world, that customer service is the bane of every establishment. According to Lisa Masiello, the Chief Marketing Officer of TechMarc labs, “Happy customers are your biggest advocates and can become your most successful sales team.” Customer service is essential for online businesses because your website is your shop or an extension of your physical place of business.
Review Sites
The technology at our disposal today has caused many people to base their faith in products and services reviews. Hence, your reputation could either be made or marred by reports. Several sites exist for customer reviews for different products and services. Some of them include Angie’s List, Yelp, and TripAdvisor.
Unfavorable Reviews
Getting negative reviews can harm your business and reduce your credibility on consumer review sites, making it harder to find you on listings. As much as no one desires to get negative reviews, customers sometimes give them. Therefore, every business owner or media personnel should be prepared to handle such whenever they occur. The goal of excellent customer service is to provide them the best possible experience, even when they’re not pleased.
Understand How Ratings and Review Sites Work
You must know the effect of ratings and reviews on your business. This process helps in determining the approach to use while relating to your customer base. Also, understanding how the review sites work allows you to know your business’s perception, and it goes hand in hand with your online presence.
Have Adequate Online Presence
As a business or business owner, you have to stay abreast of your online status. This procedure helps you to know what customers like about your goods or services and what they don’t. It could also help you to understand their expectations and enable you to build your brand accordingly. Monitoring also makes prompt servicing possible as you’re aware of any customer reviews or updates as they post them.
Approach Matters
Even though it’s not the dream, please don’t take it as a nightmare. Also, don’t ignore reviews just because they are wrong. You have to check them up to find out if you genuinely were at fault. Also, don’t be too hard on yourself or your staff, especially if it is not a regular occurrence. Approach the situation as delicately as possible until you get to the root.
Identify a Pattern
This step applies if there are multiple negative reviews. Depending on the number, you could either choose to address each one or make a general improvement in the business. If you take the general approach, remember to send an update to all customers to assure them that you have resolved the issue.
Take it Offline
Experts usually advise that you not respond to negative reviews directly on the site until the issue is resolved. You should contact the customer via email or phone as some sites contain contact information for the person who posted a review. This tactic prevents a public back and forth debacle, and individuals are more likely to open up that way.
A Prompt but Polite Response
One of the most popular rules of service is that “the customer is always right,” so you should endeavor to be as kind as possible to avoid escalation of the issue. As much as you want to be prompt, take time to gather a polite response. Do your best not to appear defensive but rather open-minded and ready to help.
Be Proactive
Customers are usually impressed when you go all out to make sure they get the best. Hence, you should take steps to remedy the situation if you find merit to the complaints. Where necessary, offer the customer a coupon, discount, or even a refund if need be. Sometimes, it may incur a loss, but in the long run, it assures others that they can count on you to listen to their issues, which increases patronage.
Follow Up
After the situation that led to a bad review has been resolved, it’s essential to follow up with the customer and politely request that they remove the review. Some sites might be impossible. They may revise it, or your business would have to place a request to the site for removal.
Inform Your Staff
Everyone working for the business should be aware of the negative reviews and how they were handled. It helps to prevent the same mistakes or issues from reoccurring. That way, every employee can handle such situations to an extent if the need ever arises.
Media Companies
Visit Max Media Creates to learn more about our service and how we can help you manage everything media-related for your business. You’ll experience first-hand, the buzz it creates on media platforms, excellent customer service, and swiftly dealing negative reviews. It helps to have a professional agency manage the reputation aspect of your business. You can then focus on generating more leads for your products and services.