• July 11, 2018
• by fsadvertising

About 80% of business search results are influenced by social media accounts and online reviews and not by actual business websites, according to a 2011 report released by an advertising firm Marchex. Online reviews improve your reputation online and impacts the decision of customers. This has been proven in BrightLocal’s survey which states that two-thirds of customers form their opinion of a business after reading just four reviews.

Reviews can be either positive or negative. It is not always that a brand will get positive reviews on Google or other view sites. Negative reviews can tarnish the image of a brand, thus affecting in the long-run. Ignoring a bad review only makes things worse.

Is your business facing a negative review? If you’re not familiar on how to deal with negative reviews, here are some ways or measures you can tackle them.

Acknowledgement is the key: 

There is a reason why people post negative comments online, is because they think that they are not being listened to is because they don’t get acknowledged each time. Hence they take out all their anger and frustration about the bad services given by your business on social media to spread the message of particular service or product being bad.

Another reason is that those people want to hurt you & force you to pay attention to them. It is best to acknowledge the customer’s issue as soon as possible before you get the butterfly effect of negative comments. It does not mean that a business has to exceed their limits of providing solutions, businesses have the upper hand to resolve the queries and complaints as per their perspective.

A non-judgemental and healthy communication while trying to understand what went wrong can help you go a long way.

Accept the fault & apologise:

It is very difficult for organisations to take the blame and say sorry, as when you apologise it is often considered that it was the businesses or products fault of what went wrong regarding the negative comment, it gets utterly difficult to argue with some clients and customers as they are so adamant to just make you feel like as it was entered the product’s fault, although it must not be, but saying a simple “Sorry” for just being humble & kind, might change the mood of client and make him inclined to understand your situation.

Although you may have to refund or replace the order and product, a sincere apology might pin the issue down the line & will also take the situation on a better and more clearer path.

Make sure not to sound like a robot! This is a universal issue unlimited people are experiencing at the same time, DO NOT GIVE COPY PASTE RESPONSE to customers as they are quite smart to understand if you actually mean the apology or not. You can always try to personalise and empathize with the trouble that customer must have gone through,

Acting defensive:

It is obviously a nightmare, when an organization is faced with a negative review. It is advisable to not act in a defensive way which would again turn unfavourable for your brand. Get your thoughts in order and maybe you can respond to it after some time.

Respond:

Whenever your brand faces a negative review, it is recommended to not avoid but leave a polite and thought-out public comment. If you fail to take action, it can lead to long-term consequences. At times, these reviews are written by spammers who always aim to harm the brand’s reputation.

Verify the reviewer:

Inspect the reviewer who has uploaded the negative review. Reach out to them, ask them how to settle the matter amicably. Once you communicate about the matter, you can know what the core problem is and offer a solution, when was the last time they did business with you and address them personally.

Beg for a review again:

After offering a solution, you may ask the customer to provide an updated review which would help your brand in a positive way. In the second instance, the updated review can be published so that it portrays that your brand is concerned in excelling customer experience.

You will be surprised to know that around 33% of negative reviews on Yelp turned positive when you take the time to respond to the upset customer.

Improvement is a wise decision:

If your brand is consistently receiving bad reviews regarding a particular customer service, then it is wise that you improve on the same and it’s time you change the way you work.

Is your business facing any bad review? How do you deal with it? Let us know in the comments section below.

Would you like any assistance with regards to online reputation management? Get in touch with us. Futurescape Advertising is one of the leading advertising and digital marketing companies based in Vashi, Navi Mumbai.