In today’s world, negative online reviews can break a business because consumers are judge, jury, and sometimes, executioner. And approximately 75% of businesses don’t respond to any reviews, positive or negative, which is a mistake.

How you respond to unsatisfied customers shows prospects how they’ll also be treated when dealing with your business. Responding to reviews provides an opportunity to increase your conversion rates and revenue and cultivate goodwill with your customers.

5 Things to Consider When Responding to Negative Reviews:

1. Thank them for responding. Thanking a customer for a negative review sends a message of gratitude that they’re sharing information valuable to you. And even though this kind of review can be damaging and embarrassing to the business, taking the time to thank the person who wrote the review can go a long way.
2. Keep it personal. Some sites require that you include your name, while others allow aliases. This indicates to the reviewer (and other visitors) that you’re speaking to them directly and confirms that you’re not posting a standard reply or copying and pasting from another source.
3. Apologize compassionately: Customers are expecting you to apologize and take ownership of what they think is a mistake. And how you do that will depend on what they said in their review. What makes people angry about the typical apology is the fact that they really aren’t apologies at all, so make yours feel real.
4. Whenever possible provide a solution. Try to correct what the reviewer feels is wrong, which, in some cases, can mean reimbursing them if they were wronged or taking responsibility for a mix-up. Whenever possible, present customers with resolutions to their problems, even if you believe they are at fault.
5. Discuss the situation further in a non-public setting.Reassure the reviewer that they’ll get the help they need personally by email or a phone call. Some reviewers believe that businesses want to communicate offline to avoid bad press, but many problems can’t be resolved in one electronic reply. Provide them with contact information for a team member to provide a personal one-on-one encounter.

Stay Alerted!

You must monitor when a negative review has been published about your business. After all, you can’t fix a problem if you don’t know you have one. And when/if you do receive an alert, you need to have a plan of action in place for responding to any negative reviews.

If you need help with your online reputation management, we can help! We can also assist you with SEO/SEM, Direct Mail, Email Marketing, Website Creation – or any other marketing tools. Just give us a call today at 203-746-5901 or send us an email to sales@BlueOrchidMarketing.com to get started.