7 Tips for Dealing with Negative Reviews

Online customer reviews are extremely important to your business. Although it’s definitely not pleasant to see people talking negatively about your brand, bad reviews won’t ruin your career – especially if you know how to deal with them.

Don’t Ignore Them

One of the worst things you can do when you receive a negative review is ignore it. In case you don’t respond, people will not only think that the review is justified but that you don’t care about customer service. Similarly, you shouldn’t delete negative comments on your social media posts. Remember that not everyone is going to like you, and it’s completely normal to receive bad feedback. In fact, if people only have good things to say about you online, people will think you paid people to write fake reviews.

Avoid Getting into a Debate

You should avoid getting into an argument when responding to a bad review, even if what the person wrote is not true. You should never tell a customer that he or she is wrong. Instead, express understanding and empathy. Keep in mind that your responses are just as important as the reviews you get in the eyes of your potential customers. If you respond in a polite way and try to reach a resolution, people will notice and they’ll see you are a good company that cares about their customers.

Acknowledge the Issue

The right way of responding to a negative review is acknowledging the issue and apologizing. It’s worth noting that most people who leave bad reviews just want to be heard, so make sure you directly address the issue they pointed out. The great thing about this type of approach is that it may even help turn it into a positive review. Keep in mind that you won’t be able to do this every time since some customers are simply not willing to cooperate.

Use Online Reputation Management Software

A lot of people don’t respond to reviews quickly because they don’t even know they received any. Even though you may be excellent at your job, it’s understandable if you don’t know how to properly manage your online reputation. Thankfully, you won’t have to worry about this if you decide to use reputation management software. By choosing to use it, you will be able to monitor profiles across different websites on a single dashboard, which will help you respond to reviews quickly.

Resolve the Issue Offline

Just responding to a negative review and apologizing for the issue won’t be enough to resolve it. Doing only this will likely make consumers think you’re apologizing for show. However, you shouldn’t start a public online exchange everyone can see. The best way to handle the situation is offline, so make sure you leave contact information at the end of your response and encourage the unhappy customer to get in touch with you.

Don’t Ask for Positive Reviews

A great way to reduce the impact of a negative review is to encourage more people to leave feedback. However, what you absolutely must avoid is asking for positive reviews. Know that people will be able to tell if feedback is not sincere. Remember that the best reviews you’ll ever receive are going to be from people who were amazed by your service and wanted everyone else to know just how good you are.

Stop Making Excuses

Even if the reason why a customer of yours is dissatisfied isn’t your fault, you shouldn’t make any excuses or try to explain your way out of the problem. This will make your business seem untrustworthy to other people. Instead, it’s recommended you simply own up to the problem and attempt to resolve it as quickly as possible. If you do this, the person who left you the bad review may end up changing it.

Adam Richards

About Adam Richards

Adam Richards is a semi-retired business professional originally from Bangor, Maine. He spent the majority of his career in sales and marketing where he rose to the marketing lead of a Fortune 1000 company. He then moved on to helping people as a career counselor that specifically helped bring families to self-sufficiency through finding them rewarding careers. He has now returned to Bangor for his retirement and spends his free time writing. This blog will be about everything he learned throughout his career. He'll write on career, workplace, education and technology issues as well as on trends, changes, and advice for the Maine job market and its employers.