How To Respond To Negative Reviews
How To Respond To Negative Reviews
Imagine that you just opened up your small boutique in the middle of a busy plaza, or your second restaurant after the first one was so successful, or you just got a few life coaching clients. Your business is thriving, so much so that you got a couple of amazing reviews on your Facebook page. You now have an amazing reputation and business is going well, until all of a get a terrible review. It brings your entire rating down on Facebook (or Google and Yelp), and you worry that people are hesitating to come to your business because of one bad review. This is an incredibly common problem for many business owners who market their business online and unfortunately there isn't a clear cut way to handle a negative review. However, there are plenty of ways you can respond.
1. Sympathize with the Reviewer
No matter the situation, if the review is public the chances are that there are already many views on that one review. The best thing you can do when you respond is to sympathize with your reviewer, however you shouldn't give a canned response like "I am sorry you had such a negative experience." I recommend staying away from responses like that because they feel very corporate and impersonal. When you are on social media platforms like Facebook people want you to call you by their name, so instead of "I am sorry you had such a negative experience" say "Hi (name), I am sorry you feel that way" and then complete the rest of your response from there.
2. Positively Market Your Business
When someone is talking negatively about your business it's important to keep as calm, cool and collected as you can before responding. While, it's important to sympathize, you also have to speak about your business in a positive way and make sure potential clients or customers can see that this was one negative experience that one person had and it's not what you are about. This could be phrased as "this is not how (business name) conducts our business" or "We always like to make sure our customers leave with a good experience". When you respond like this, you are saying "this is not a normal experience and we are dealing with it immediately" to all eyes looking at this review and response.
3. Take It from Public to Private
On social media, it's important to be as personable as possible. Taking the conversation to a private message or even to a phone call will make sure your customer or client feels heard. Lots of times you will see negative reviews because the customer or client feels some sort of power struggle between themselves and the owner/employee. Whether that is them not feeling like their coupons didn't work, their food didn't come out the right way or if they just feel like whatever service you provided them with didn't help them at all. These types of situations will most likely get someone to write a negative review about you. Being personable will be key and maybe offering a discount or a free session with you to have them come back will help too.
4. Keep It Short and Sweet
Don't make your responses too long, try to keep it under 150 words. If there is one thing about the internet, it's that no one like to read comments that are super long. Your customer or client is not going to want to respond to a very long response either. Try to make it one or two sentences and take the conversation out of the public eye, so your customer can detail their experience and you can help them out.
Have Bad Reviews? SPB Productions Can Help!
If you have bad reviews on your business Facebook page and you need a way to respond to them, SPB Productions' reputation management program can help with that. If your social media pages need help getting reviews we have a system to help you and your business with that. Your business depends on your clients or customers getting positive reviews and in this day and age having good social media reputation management is not just an option it's a NECESSITY. To learn more schedule a free discovery call today or learn more about our social media management program.