How To Respond To Negative Reviews

Reviews are an essential for any businesses and companies. Nowadays, due to the existence of social media and online review site, people get different online platforms to review any product or service. Some of the most popular platforms are – Amazon, Facebook, Yelp, Google and Tripadvisor. Consumers or customers rely a lot on these reviews to make their final call about whether or not to purchase anything from that company. Businesses are human operated and all businesses can make mistakes whether it is delayed delivery or wrong goods or a faulty product. Sometimes, these mistakes can lead to some of the negative reviews by the people.

But at times, negative reviews on social media pages or on any other platform are not due to mistakes. These reviews can be a result from a certain mismatch of taste or an uncontrollable event. This can have an undeniable impact on the minds of the consumers. Hence, it is very important for the businesses and companies to know how they can respond to all these negative reviews and feedbacks.

WHY RESPONDING NEGATIVE REVIEWS IS IMPORTANT?

You need to learn how to respond to negative reviews because negative reviews can do a lot of damage to the brand image. Here are some of the statistics to help you:

About 94% of the customers say that bad reviews or feedbacks have changed their mind about purchasing anything from the business
About 53% of the consumers expect that the business or companies will respond to the negative reviews in a week or so. But unfortunately, about 63% of the people say that some of the businesses didn’t respond to the reviews.
According to 45% of the customers, they are more likely to rely on a business that takes its time out to respond to all the negative reviews from their clients and customers.

Hence, responding to the negative feedbacks and reviews can help in repairing the image to certain extent. It will not drive away your existing or new customers. In fact, responding to those reviews can help in improving the perceptions of the consumers.

HOW TO RESPOND TO NEGATIVE REVIEWS?

There is no doubt that responding to all those negative reviews and feedbacks can be quite tough. Bad reviews can be cruel at times and they can be hurtful too. Though these negative reviews can make you upset, it is very important to maintain your cool while responding. Here are some of the things that you need to keep in mind while responding to all the negative reviews:

ADDRESS THE REVIEWERS INDIVIDUALLY

An individual reply can have better impact. So, instead of ear customer’ or ear guest’, take the name of the guest/customer. When you mention the name, it feels more personalized and not generic. When the response is personalized, people can relate to it and take it more personally.

DON’T FORGET TO BE COURTEOUS

Make sure that you are appreciating the fact your client/customer is taking their time out for the review. So, always say hank you’ even if it is a negative review. A simple hank you’ can make people realize that you are appreciating their thoughts and feedbacks. For instance, you can write like – ear XYZ, thank you for your review. We are sorry to hear…’ and so on.

ACKNOWLEDGE, APOLOGIZE AND SYMPATHIZE

Yes, there is no doubt that you need to apologize when it comes to a negative reviews. Even if you think that there is no fault of your company or business, it is important to acknowledge that you are sorry for it and apologize. Just by adding a line or two like – e are sorry to hear about your experience. We apologize that you didn’t enjoy our services as you expected it’ can help to patch things up a lot.

TAKE RESPONSIBILITY

One of the most important things that you need to avoid is to make excuses. You have to take the responsibility of the mishap that has happened and acknowledge that it is unfortunate to hear about the bad experience from the customer. Providing reassurance that this will not happen again and you are looking forward to serve them again with better service is a good approach to respond these negative reviews.

KEEP THE RESPONSES SHORT YET SWEET

When it is about responding to the negative reviews, always remember that less is more. The rule of thumb is to write about 3 to 4 sentences mostly. You have to resist the urge of retaliating or defending your every point. It can sound rude and result in long responses too.

MOVE THE ISSUE OFFLINE/PRIVATE

It is not always possible to resolve the bad experience of the customers by your apology or empathy on an online reply. In order to be sure that the customer is satisfied or happy with your response, you can ask for them to share their details privately so that you can look into the matter personally. This can have a good impact. You can talk directly with the customer via email, chat or even over phone call. It will help the customers to gain back their trust too.

ASK FOR A SECOND CHANCE

Never ever slam the door right on the face of the negative reviewers. With some of the best ways, you can always reassure that the customers will come back to your business again. You can ask for the second chance from the customers and welcome them with your open arms. You can provide them with some promo codes or discount offers in order to gain back their loyalty and trust. This will also help you to end the conversation on a good note.

CONCLUSION

This is all about how to respond to negative reviews. Responding to the negative reviews is not only important for the reviewers but also it is important for the new customers too. It can have a powerful impact on them and they can realize that your business/company takes complaints seriously. Responding to the negative reviews and how you are doing it can have a huge impact on your present customer base as well as prospective ones. So, make sure you are doing it right.