Tips on How to Respond to A Negative Review.
Your company is your baby and you would do anything to protect it. The worst feeling in the world is when someone does not feel the same way or even insults your precious baby with a negative review.
No company can avoid a negative review. It will inevitably happen no matter what field you are in, even if it is creating clothes for puppies. The best action you can take is to be prepared with a plan of action.
Here is a list of tips to help you handle a negative review.
- Take a deep breath – When you first see a negative review, you may feel the need to respond right away. While it is important to respond within 48 hours of the negative review, responding when you are emotional will lead to remarks that may come across as insults, accusations against the reviewer, or something inappropriate.
- Apologize but do not make excuses – “I am sorry you feel that my company did not respond to your inquiry quickly, but we have been busy.” Responding with an excuse will make you appear insincere and take away from the apology. Either apologize for how your company handled the complaint or use this as a time to highlight your strengths, maybe even both. An example would be “We sincerely apologize that our company did not respond in a timely fashion, with 10 years of experience and thousands of customers we understand the importance of each individual…”
- Make sure your page looks professional – Make sure that you have claimed your business on review sites. It will make your page look more professional and might deter some from writing a negative review. Even if it does not deter people, it will appear to those who write a review that his or her complaints or issues will be resolved. If you are not sure about how to claim your credit repair company or are not sure why you should, check out our blog on why claiming your company is necessary.
- Remember Social Media – There are two major things to remember about social media when dealing with reviews. The first is that social media can be harmful if you are not careful. On Facebook, there is a feature that can allow customers to post on your page, but you can and should disable this feature. People can still comment or like your posts, but you do not want people posting negative comments directly onto your page for everyone to see. While there is a chance that social media can hurt, posting and providing new content regularly can help your SEO score and push negative reviews down and ensure that people see good content first.
You will have to deal with negative reviews at some point in your company’s life. It is important to remember that it is not a reflection on you and reviews can be actually be beneficial. Reviews, both positive and negative, are a way to help you see where your company may have shortcomings but also where you are excelling.
