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Responding to Negative Online Reviews
Thunderbolt Digital provides a range of services for local SMEs including web design, SEO, web hosting, SMM, and online marketing Guildford. We know that getting reviews can be a struggle, and that dealing with negative feedback can be a real drain on morale, but this needn’t be the case! Here’s our handy four-step guide to dealing with negative reviews online.
Like the reviews themselves, it’s important that the responses that you give should be genuine, and not copy and pasted. Avoid sounding repetitive, or like you’re obviously using a template; give your replies a personal touch that shows that you are listening to what they’re saying. Acknowledging your customers’ reviews will make them feel valued, and may be the difference between a second chance and a lost customer. But what exactly are you meant to say to them to communicate this? Well, it can be easily broken down into these four easy steps:
1) Apologise for their negative experience
Acknowledging that something went wrong is an excellent start – some businesses don’t like to do this at all, leading to customers becoming even more disgruntled as their experiences are denied or swept under the rug to avoid bad PR.
2) Take responsibility (even if it had nothing to do with you)
Even if a problem was caused by an under-trained or rogue employee, passing the buck looks unprofessional, and like you’re trying to make excuses – don’t do it.
3) Address the problem, explain how you will resolve the issue and/or prevent it from happening again
This is the strongest and arguably the most important step. Apologies and compensation mean very little to a customer if they believe the same thing will happen again; this step will restore their confidence in your brand, and reassure other customers who see it.
4) Invite the customer to come back once the above changes have been implemented
This shows the customer that they are important to you and that you believe the problem will be solved by the time they visit again. You may want to offer compensation in the form of money off or coupons to try and entice the customer back if you’re doubtful of their return.
Remember that, generally speaking, customers do not want to complain; they would prefer a good product or service that meets their expectations, and wish for the transaction to go as smoothly as you do! Negative reviews are left usually because a customer would like the matter to be settled with them – if they did not care they would not leave any feedback at all! With this in mind, negative reviews can be seen as a last chance for your business, and an opportunity to set things right with your customer.