Some clients have asked us about the unfortunate circumstance of what they should do if they receive a negative review, which can impact a business’s reputation online. I recommend setting yourself up on Google Alerts as this will send you a notification every time your company is mentioned online so you can take a proactive approach to online reputation management. This way, you know when reviews, both bad and good, are being left, giving you a head start in marketing with the review correctly.
It may be understandable to be disappointed or angry when you read a negative review. Your first intuition might be to contact the review platform and request that they take down the review. But Instead of allowing your feelings to cause you to respond, take a deep breath, and negotiate with negative online reviews like you would with any general complaint.
Treat the negative review as a conversation where you have to go in, diffuse the situation, offer a way to make up for whatever their dissatisfaction was. Of course, end with highlighting any positive and point to more positive reviews and ratings. Many potential customers will feel reviews are more authentic when there are a couple of bad or mediocre reviews amongst your five-star ratings instead of seeing every single review as five stars.
Bad reviews are also, in some ways, constructive feedback, and they could lead to staff and management discussing ways to improve their business to minimize the chance of a bad review occurring again.
We hope you found this useful – If you have any more questions on this or Google Alert, feel free to drop us a mail @ info (at) xourx.com
