It happens to the best of companies— negative reviews. The difference is how a company handles the situation. Below we will cover 4 tips for helping deal with negative reviews and/or comments that are left about your business.
Negative Reviews: Monitor all comments
You should have at least one employee that is responsible for monitoring all of your social media accounts, emails, comments on your website, blogs, etc. If it’s a platform that allows reviews, you need to be monitoring it so that you can respond in a timely fashion and to know what is being said about your company.
Make sure to understand the situation first
Before you respond to a comment or review, you need to understand the situation, and you need to understand it from the customer’s perspective. When you respond to a legitimate concern of a customer, you don’t want to seem dismissive or show a lack of professionalism. You need to understand the problem or you could lose customers.
It’s so easy for us to read a negative comment or review and go into defensive mode but you need to take a few minutes, really reflect on what is being said, understand it, assess the situation and then plan out your response.
Respond in a timely fashion
Once you have read the review/comment and have had time to plan your response, do it as quickly as possible. Make it a personal response and not a generic apology. Let the customer know that you are aware of the situation and how it is frustrating for them. Let them know what you’re going to do to fix the situation. Offer them ways to contact you offline if they would like to—either by an email address, phone number, or in another fashion that is more personable.
You always need to put yourself in the shoes of your customer. If you show genuine concern for your customer and do what you can to make the situation right, you might be able to save that customer and have them use your services again in the future. Often when a business corrects a situation and makes an unhappy customer happy, that customer will share their experience with friends and family.
Take the high road
Remember there are three sides to every story. Yours, the customers, and the truth. Occasionally a person may leave a comment or review about your business that isn’t entirely true. Obviously, this can be frustrating for you as the business owner. The best course of action is to respond to the comment in the most professional manner possible, explain your side o the story and apologize regardless of how you feel about the situation and move on. DO NOT give into temptation to say bad things to that customer.
Unfortunately, in today’s society complaints and negative comments on social media is just something businesses must deal with. Just make sure to have a plan in place on how to handle these situations so that you can keep your online reputation in order. Again, be sure to always listen, understand and respond in a timely manner.
If you need assistance with your social media platforms, managing your online reputation, or have any other questions about your online marketing, please contact us here at Get Social! We provide online marketing services such as website maintenance, website design and social media management in the Houston area to new business owners, small business owners, non-profits, and more.