Everyone has an opinion, and unfortunately as a business owner some of those opinions could cause your business a great deal of trouble. Managing your online reputation is a must-do item on your daily checklist. Forget to do it, and you might find people deserting you in droves. Bad reviews are a fact of online life. They are so easy to post, and can sway large segments of the audience in your favor or not. The secret is getting a lot more of the positive to outweigh the unavoidable negative.
What to do with a negative review
Follow these 3 steps and develop your own system for taking care of a negative review whenever it does surface.
- Make customer service a top priority – A big part of the reason companies wind up in the position of having to deal with a negative online review is that often there’s a failure in their customer service or support. Often times customers are reaching out through various channels, including email, Facebook, Twitter or in blog comments. Frequently these are overlooked for too long, resulting in one mad customer, who feels like they have no alternative other than to vent their aggravations on an online review site. In most cases, usually the whole scenario could have been avoided by paying a little more attention to your social and internal channels.
- Be professional at all times – The worst thing you should do is get in to an online shouting match with a client. This will not turn out well for you, ever! Even if you are right, you’re completely wrong to engage in this fashion, as it will scale this problem to heights you wouldn’t think possible. Strive to remain professional, generous, and attempt to keep that customer, or at least make sure you don’t lose more of them! Because this type of customer usually represents about 1% of your customer base, it’s simply not worth the trouble it causes.
- Foster positive reviews – One of the ways you can actively help your online reputation is asking for positive reviews of your product or service form your happy customers. Many are glad to help you, and if these appear frequently, the chances that the occasional negative review will stand a chance of remaining high in the search results are slim. Consider it as not just as managing your online reputation, but as a way of promoting your business, for nothing!
The important thing in dealing with negative reviews is to be alert when they occur, handle customers with respect and professionalism, and make managing your online reputation a very high priority! In this time of instant communication, you virtually have no choice.
