In this article, you’ll learn how to respond to negative reviews so you can increase customer satisfaction and your online reputation.
Negative feedback happens to everyone, whether you’re building your personal reputation online or protecting your brand’s online presence.
Knowing how to respond to a negative online review and manage those harmful comments is key to mitigating damage and protecting your brand’s reputation.
More than 93% of online shoppers read reviews before making an online purchase. And reviews matter more to customers than pricing and discounts. Furthermore, very few customers will make a purchase if negative reviews for a company show up on the search results page.
In other words, when you respond to negative reviews online, it goes a long way!
Your Review Response Matters
Negative reviews are becoming all too common in today’s digital world. Moreover, knowing how to reply to a bad Google review is not as simple as you might assume.
BrightLocal found that 88% of consumers would use a business that replies to all reviews, both positive and negative, while only 47% would use a business that doesn’t respond to its reviews.
Therefore, it pays to take the time to inspect your online reviews and customer feedback routinely. Negative reviews can be detrimental to a company. A bad review can pop up anywhere — Facebook reviews, Google reviews, Better Business Bureau reviews and more.
The good news is that there are ways to hide, fix or completely remove negative reviews.
You can get the positive reviews your brand deserves. Don’t wait until your competition beats you to it.
For help from the professionals at NetReputation, fill out the contact form below.
Request a Free Consultation
How to Respond to Negative Reviews
Take a Deep Breath
These days, negative feedback is simply a part of doing business. Take a deep breath and keep this in mind.
Virtually every successful business has been subject to negative online feedback at one point or another. Large corporations have full-time staff dedicated to managing their online reputation for this very reason.
It can be difficult to brush off critical feedback about your business, but it’s important to take it seriously and approach it calmly.
It’s hard enough to get reviews or customer feedback in the first place. So, take the time to show others you care about their customer satisfaction by responding to reviews, good or bad.
Most importantly, resist the urge to respond with a sarcastic or defensive reply. Learn how to respond to negative reviews in a polite and timely manner.
Addressing negative reviews too aggressively may have more detrimental effects on your business.
Decide If You Need Legal Help
In most cases, you won’t need to hire a lawyer to have negative reviews removed. Knowing how to delete a negative review can be as simple as contacting the reviewer and attempting to solve the problem.
Check your customer database to see if you can find their contact information. If so, you can take the conversation offline to try to resolve the problem.
A simple solution, like apologizing and offering a gift card or discount, may be enough to change how they feel about you. They may even update their original negative feedback to explain how the situation was remedied.
There are a couple of exceptions to taking this approach, though. For example, you may find out that a competitor has been posting negative reviews. Or, you could be the victim of blackmail.
If the customer review falls into a category like this, it’s best to consult a lawyer before doing anything else.
Work With Social Media Influencers To Get Reviews
For most bad reviews, the answer is to bury the reviews under an avalanche of great content. Negative reviews generally lose their power over time, especially if you take a content suppression approach.
You can expedite that process by working with social media influencers who can present your business in a positive light to their followers.
The key to making this work is relevancy. Do your research to find the best social media influencers for your brand. Make sure that their brand aligns with the customers that your business targets to get the best results.
This is a long-term process that requires you to build relationships with influencers. This way, owners know that they’re not compromising their own brand by promoting someone they don’t fully believe in.
This could mean, for example, that you allow them to test out your products or services in exchange for a video testimonial on YouTube or in an Instagram story.
NetReputation works with reviewers across the country to help you get coverage and improve your online reputation. Call us at 844-461-3632 to learn more.
Respond to Reviews Publicly
Most review platforms allow you to respond to customer reviews, which is particularly helpful when addressing negative feedback. You can take the sting out of a bad review by responding directly to it and offering your sincerest apologies.
It doesn’t matter if the review is justified or not — the point of your review response is to send the message that you care.
Furthermore, it’s not uncommon for reviewers to amend or even take down their initial negative comments because you reached out to solve their problem.
Almost all platforms give businesses the opportunity to respond to negative reviews or comments. Once you’ve cooled down, take advantage of this opportunity.
Ignoring the comment can give other readers the impression that you don’t care about your unhappy customers or their concerns. Knowing how to respond to a bad review can quickly resolve any conflicts before they worsen.
Respond Within 24 Hours
Most consumers expect a response to their review within 2 to 3 days and no longer than a week.
When using social platforms to connect with brands, that window is a lot shorter. According to Sprout Social, 30% of consumers expect a same-day response, 23% of consumers want a response within 1 to 2 hours, and 16% of consumers expect to get a response within minutes.
For the most part, it’s acceptable to wait a few hours or even a couple of days, but not a few weeks. During those few weeks, other people are reading the negative review without the benefit of understanding your side of the story.
Make sure your response is in line with the subject matter of the negative comment. For example, if the review misrepresented what happened, clarifying what actually occurred can help.
On the other hand, if the review pointed out a mistake that was made, sharing what actions were taken to resolve the complaint is usually the most prudent way to respond.
In all cases, keep your response positive and to the point. And remember: The tone of your response is just as important as the content.
Fix the Problem
Take time to read and analyze each of the negative reviews that have been left about your business. If everyone is saying they are experiencing the same problem, there’s a good chance that you need to fix something internally.
A written response is a great start, but you can take further action to turn the negative review into a positive stepping stone for your business.
What To Do If the Negative Feedback is Accurate
If the review was accurate, think of it as useful feedback to help improve your business. Often, the issues that reviewers bring to light are easy to fix by coaching employees to provide better customer service. In your review response, be sure to note the steps that were taken along the way to remedy the issue.
What To Do If the Negative Feedback is Inaccurate
If a negative review or comment was inaccurate, evaluate why you might be getting negative feedback and how often you get poor reviews.
Is a disgruntled employee or competitor undermining your business? If so, how can you get the person to stop? Should you hire expert help to protect your online reputation?
The answers to these questions are different for each situation, but they are important to consider. A poor online reputation can be embarrassing; do what you can to resolve any and all issues with your clients.
Turn a Negative Review Into a Positive One
We live in an era where people judge everything and everyone. If a negative review or comment appears on a popular site, it can feel like a personal attack.
However, while it is never pleasant to be criticized, it is important to remember that you can respond to negative reviews in a way that turns negative commentary into something positive.
When people complain, they do so because they want to be heard. The worst thing you can do is ignore them; you may be fueling the fire.
You must learn to respond in an appropriate and thoughtful manner. Doing so will enable you to turn a negative into a positive.Â
You can take control of your online reputation, whether you’re working on your personal reputation or your professional digital presence. Call us at 844-461-3632 for more information.
Remember That the Customer Is Always Right
When taking steps to respond to negative reviews, always remember that the customer is always right. Even if they are wrong in the reasons for their complaint, their feelings are justified, and you must take responsibility for that.
Customers expect businesses to be accountable for what they do and say. Hence, you should not pass the buck or shift the blame. Instead, immediately acknowledge that you could have done better.
Doing so will give you the greatest opportunity to retain the disgruntled customer and show others that you truly care.
Your customer simply wants to be heard. When you address the issue, you are also addressing all the people who did not take the time to complain but had the same negative experience.
The Growing Problem of Fake Negative Business Reviews
Building and maintaining a positive internet reputation can be hard work. Businesses of all sizes are at risk of having fake negative online business reviews – a growing problem on the internet that undermines your hard work.
Fake negative business reviews are exactly what they sound like: untrue reviews and comments written on discussion boards, review sites and social media.
Who Writes Them?
The nature of fake business reviews makes it difficult to identify the source. If the source can be tracked, it typically turns out to be a competitor, a disgruntled employee, or an individual who has a personal grudge against the business owner.
Getting together with an IT professional or using a WHOIS tool will disclose the owner’s name if the website is public. This way, you can at least contact the business for recourse.
Sometimes, these people go so far as to create profiles with fake names and addresses. Other times, they hire an unscrupulous company to write fake reviews and shield their identity.
What Can a Business Owner Do?
Protecting your business’ reputation from fake reviewers begins with monitoring your company’s online reputation.
Stay up to date on what reviewers and commentators are writing. If there’s a sudden increase in the number or intensity of negative reviews even though you haven’t changed business practices, fake reviews could be the culprit.
If you identify a fake review, determine whether the platform enables you to request the removal of comments. Some online review platforms allow you to flag a review that is false or violates the platform’s terms of service.
Otherwise, though, review platforms often err on the side of leaving questionable reviews online because their success depends on having numerous reviews regardless of their sentiment.
You can also try implementing various reverse SEO tactics when struggling to hide negative content and web pages online.
Hiring help from a company like NetReputation is recommended if negative fake reviews are more than an isolated incident or are causing serious harm to your business. Contact us today at 844-461-3632 to learn more.
Unfair Negative Reviews
These types of reviews are often based on unfounded allegations, containing absolutely no facts, and the person who left the review usually played some part in their negative experience.
Two examples of this are when someone waits to return a faulty product before the warranty date passes or they use a product in a way other than intended and it breaks.
These reviews are difficult to deal with because it seems like these unhappy customers didn’t even give themselves the chance to have a positive experience. Even though they’re the ones who screwed up, they display their dissatisfaction through a bad review that your customer service team then has to deal with.
In some cases, the reviewer cannot be appeased at all, regardless of your review response. If you decide it’s in your business’s best interest to respond, tread lightly or face further negative consequences.
One effective way of ensuring a positive web presence is by creating a reputation management plan. Our team of ORM experts can help — give us a call today at 844-461-3632 for a free consultation.Â
You Can’t Solve Every Negative Experience
Dealing with negative reviews can be a delicate situation, and sometimes, there isn’t a review response that will fix the issue. In these cases, it can be best to leave the problem alone.
For example, is your business being blackmailed? If so, you should consider having the review removed instead of trying to leave a negative review response.
NetReputation is a professional, award-winning content removal agency, and with decades of experience to back you, we’ll remove negative content within 72 hours of your request. Contact us at 844-461-3632 to learn more.
Recap: Take Action On Customer Feedback
Let’s recap the steps to take when drafting a negative review response and handling unhappy customers.
The first thing you have to do is respond to negative reviews as quickly as possible. The more quickly you are able to address things, the more manageable the situation will become.
Ensure that you have all the relevant information on hand, and start by clearing up any misunderstandings. Responding in a personal manner shows you have effective customer service policies in place. It also proves to potential customers that they can trust your business.
Next, take the time to truly listen. It is all too easy to have a knee-jerk reaction and respond immediately, but that is not always the best solution.
Similarly, if your response is not as effective as you would have hoped, you shouldn’t give up. Instead, you should listen to what is really being said and try again to solve the problem.
Remember that you must ask important questions. This also gives you an opportunity to really learn from what went wrong so you can learn from it and ensure it never happens again. Your questions should be open-ended, enabling people to express what they really want to see. If anything isn’t clear to you, ask for clarification.
You also need to make sure that you actually solve the problem. If your customer has a genuine complaint, you can probably put things right without much hassle. If the complaint is not genuine, you can still offer something to make them feel better. Simple incentives like a discount on a future purchase or a complimentary product can go a long way.
Last but not least, you need to learn from what has happened. This is perhaps the most positive thing that can come out of a negative review. It is a chance for you to see how you could perform better from an outsider’s perspective and dazzle potential customers in the future.
Proactively dealing with negative feedback is a chance for you to demonstrate to the world that you are willing to change and that you are happy to listen to anything your customers suggest.
Final Thoughts: The Real Secret to Getting Rid of Negative Reviews
The best way to handle negative reviews is to deal with them immediately to try to improve your customer’s experience. The last thing you want to do is ignore them because they won’t just disappear on their own.
At NetReputation, we provide a broad range of services to individuals and businesses who want to create, grow or repair their digital reputation. Whether you’re prioritizing your personal or professional online reputation, our solutions and team of experts can help.
Get started today with a free consultation with one of our experts. Call us at 844-461-3632 or fill out the contact form below.
Request a Free Consultation
by Net Reputation