Whether you sell skiing equipment online or if you offer different outsourcing services, no one really likes seeing negative reviews appear on their official website, Facebook page, or some other sites that are specifically designed for people who want to write about their experience with a particular business.
No matter if the reviews posted about your business are true or not, there are specific ways that you can deal with them. And, if you were wondering what you can do, you’re lucky since this is exactly what we’ll talk about in this article today. Here are the top 7 mistakes that you must avoid when dealing with negative reviews online:
1. Taking Them Personally
One of the first and most important mistakes that you must ensure that you avoid making is taking the reviews personally. How is that even possible, after all, they’re talking about my business?
Of course, it is personal since your company is yours, however, in reality, it isn’t actually personal. The person that left their testimonial is sharing their experience with your company, just like they would do for any other organization. This isn’t a reflection of you as an individual, thus, never take it personally.
2. Not Responding as The Owner of The Company
It’s quite logical that you might want to deny a bad review, but, doing so will only lead to you causing additional damage to the reputation of your business. No one likes when a company representative argues with their customers, which is why you should ensure that you don’t do it. Remember, the customer is always right (according to the experts in the field), thus, your response should at least indicate it.
3. Not Allowing People to Comment on Your Facebook Posts
Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter are all about engagement and interaction with your consumers, however, a lot of organizations choose to disable the “Allow Posts” feature on their pages.
Though you’ll definitely want to do this, don’t turn off the commenting feature, especially since it might indicate that you have something to hide. Hence, you should turn off the “Allow Posts” feature on your page, but leave the commenting on, and if someone posts that they had a bad experience, respond in the comment section.
Why should you leave the comment section on? Well, it’s quite simple to understand, people who want to write a review on Facebook, but cannot choose to place it at another platform such as PissedConsumer.com, thus, if you want to ensure that you control the reviews and guarantee that your response to each and every one of them, it’s always better if you choose to leave the commenting section on.
4. Not Responding at All
If there is one thing that you must take away from this article, it’s the fact that you should always, I repeat, ALWAYS respond to the reviews left about your business, no matter if they’re negative or positive.
After all, someone took the time to write about the experience with your firm, products, or services, which is exactly why you also need to take some time and respond to the things they have to say.
Now, of course, if you are being responsible as an owner and if your business is doing well, it’s highly possible that you won’t see too many negative reviews, however, if there are some coming your way, you must address each of them. Being too busy or not caring about them won’t be enough for your consumers, and it’ll only damage your organization, especially in the online world where everything is important.
5. Not Restating The Testimonial
Again, no matter what type of business your run, when one of your consumers gets upset, the very first thing that they’ll want is for you to hear them out.
For example, if an individual is complaining about how long they waited to get the meals they ordered in your restaurant, don’t claim that it was too busy, instead, you should always apologize for their negative experience, and you could also state that you’ll do better next time.
Now, if the customer is really annoyed, you could even offer some perks or benefits for them. For instance, if they wrote that one of the products they ordered from your online store got damaged during transportation, you could offer to send them a new product.
By doing so, they’ll most likely opt for leaving another, more positive review, mostly because you made it clear that you care about their experience. This can also help you retain customers, even if they did have a negative experience.
6. Making Excuses is Never an Option
It’s quite natural that your first response might be to give an explanation and reason why something happened. However, sentences such as “We didn’t have enough staff working that day” or “It was incredibly busy” won’t be enough for your clients, and they simply might think that you’re trying to make excuses. This will also make you sound like you’re trying to blame other people, which is why you must avoid making this mistake.
7. Not Solving The Issue
Last on our list, but equally worth mentioning as everything else on our list is the fact that you cannot make the mistake of not solving the problem one of your clients has. After all, the negative reviews will tell more about your organization than the positive ones people left, which is exactly why you must resolve every single problem that you might come across, especially since you’ll want to guarantee that you retain clients instead of losing them.
Conclusion
Though it can be quite tempting for you to respond to reviews in any way that you want, you shouldn’t, especially since this could cause additional damage to the reputation of your company.
This is exactly why you should follow all of the steps we’ve mentioned above, and by doing so, you’ll take responsibility, and more importantly, your entire company will look more professional.
Since you now know what you need to do in order to professionally respond to the negative reviews people left about your business, you shouldn’t lose any more time.
Instead, you should head to the platform where the testimonials were left and while keeping all of our tips in mind, respond to each of them.
