This post originally appeared in Inc. Magazine.
As business owners, we have poured our lives into our business and have dedicated years of sleepless nights, so when a client writes a negative review online for the world to see, it strikes at our heart and soul. But instead of taking a bad review personally, the best response for our business is to learn how to manage our businesses’ reputation and protect it from unrepresentative reviews.
1. Plan your strategy
This sounds straight-forward but to avoid an emotional and less effective response it’s helpful to create a plan before you take action. It’s typically most effective to keep the tone of all your communications calm and neutral, while addressing the concerns of the customer (even if you’re not in the wrong). Even if you cannot give the customer everything that they desire, by demonstrating that you are willing to take some steps to improve the situation will go a long ways in saving the relationship and letting new customers know that your business cares about them.
2. Create a business profile
If a reviewer sees that a business has a professional presence on the review site, he or she may be more reasonable in his or her review if they know the business owner will see it and there is still a chance of resolution. Many people who leave bad reviews actually still return to give the company future business. Reviewers can easily spot a business that has joined a review site because those business profiles will have customized photos, videos and calls to action.
3. Respond immediately and publicly
If possible, the best way to deal with a negative review is to respond within the first 48 hours. On Sitejabber, businesses that respond to reviews have an 86% better rating when compared to businesses that ignore them. By responding immediately and addressing the customer’s concerns, reviewers will often either delete their review or may even bump you up to a 5-star rating if they are really happy with the outcome. But even if you’re not able to come to a resolution, responding to reviews is a great way to show the world how your business handles customers that are unhappy.
4. Send a private message as well
Many customers only want to communicate via private messages and will refuse to respond publicly, so it’s important to respond to them both privately and publicly. Your private message can elaborate on more details that you may want to discuss publicly especially if your company deals with confidential information or services.
5. Collect more reviews
Once you’ve done your best to respond to and resolve the negative review, begin collecting reviews from as many of your customers as possible. By collecting reviews from a broad cross-section of your customers you can make sure your rating and online reputation reflects how your customers actually feel about you. That way, any negative reviews in the future can be seen in the broader context of all your happy customers. Moreover, at Sitejabber we’ve found that business with over 1000 reviews have an 18% higher rating and receive 672% more leads.
