Big Bad Scary Reviews! How to Combat These Monsters

Bad reviews can be spooky for your business or brand. There are different ways on how to handle these unexpected monsters. Online reviews do occur and happen very often. There are different ways to approach and help the upset customer. It is important to be professional and polite when working with customers, even online. Here are different ways on how to handle the negative reviews:

• Respond promptly: responding in a quick manner shows customers that you care about their opinions. If you do it in a good time, it may help change the customers mind and they will give your business another chance.
• Take the issue offline: if the negative review escalates, it is better to handle it offline rather than responding back and forth on the same platform that others can see. However, it depends on the problem. You may be able to leave a public comment that can solve the issue. If not, then you can work on it with the customer privately via email or phone.
• Be polite: a posted negative review may stimulate emotions and can lead to a more negative another review.
• Monitor your online presence: in order to respond to reviews, you need to know what customers are saying about your brand and where they are saying it. Google your business name and see what pops up. That is the fastest and easiest way to see your online reputation.
• Understand how the review sites work: each review site has a different way on filtering and ranking reviews. It depends on the algorithm the site uses. For example, Yelp uses an algorithm to recommend reviews it thinks will be the most helpful to the Yelp community based on three factors: quality, reliability, and the reviewer’s activity on the site.
• Take the negative reviews seriously: people that leave bad reviews want to express their opinion about the experience they had. Take the reviews on their merits, as they may reveal an area of your business that could benefit from improvement.
• Encourage customer reviews: to offset the impact of a negative review, encourage customers to leave reviews in general. However, do not attempt to influence them by asking that they only leave positive reviews, it is important to get their true opinion. To get more reviews, in your business, you can put signs up, table toppers, or window stickers for reviews on sites that you want to promote. You can also add a note to invoices or receipts asking customers to leave review on their experience on one of your services or products.
• See the good in a negative review: even bad reviews can benefit your business. If every review was positive, then potential customers could become suspicious and feel that the good reviews are not real. The negative reviews can appear to contribute to building trust and can show customers that everyone has different opinions.
• Share reviews with your employees: make sure everyone in your company is aware of the reviews you are getting to the business. This is an area of a business where these negative reviews can suggest improvement. Sharing these reviews will not only help to ensure you prevent similar problems from occurring, it builds a customer centric mindset among all of the employees rather than just the business owners.

As a business, keeping a good online reputation and presence means that you need to get good or bad reviews from customers. It keeps the name of your business or brand aware to potential customers. If you are a business owner and want help with your online reviews, get the One Question Reputation App. This app is designed to help businesses stay in touch with their customers and grow their business. It allows you to keep on top of how your customers feel about your customer service. If you want more information, visit their website.