How to Professionally Address Bad Reviews Online

Did you get a bad review on Facebook, Yelp, Yahoo! Local, Citysearch, Angie’s list or Google places for business; or a tough comment on Twitter and upsetting comments on your blog?

Accepting positive comments is the easy and enjoyable part of using social media to advertise your brand, but a proper handle of the negative reviews can actually help you to build trust with your online customers.

Is not uncommon to read one bad review while checking out a service or a specific product online. It is part of the research and we normally seek the reviews to learn if the service we require has any turndowns. By checking these reviews we learn the opinions and descriptions other consumers’ experiences.

A “BrightLocal” study conducted last year shows that approximately 72% of consumers stated that they rely on online reviews same as personal recommendations, while 52% said that the favorable reviews made them more likely to buy the product/service described.

Negative reviews aren’t so bad, you should take them as a challenge to improve and to show to the public that your business can take one critique and turn it into something positive for your service or product – always recall that not everyone can be pleased all the time.

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The golden rule here is to always respond to these reviews within a margin of 24 to 48 hours to show professionalism (but you need to have an idea of how to address these negative comments). So take it as a constructive feedback and check out some of the tips we offer you to address these situations the best way possible:

-Examine the review, don’t react quickly. When you find a bad review, the first thing you may want to do is defend yourself letting your emotions control you. It is clear that you want to show that you’re trying to give the best service all the time. In this situation, the best thing you can do is: first, just analyze the review; then, write a comment on the review sounding concerned; and finally, assure the client that you’re open to hear their opinion to improve your service. Show them that you’re glad to have that opportunity to make an improvement.

That way, you can establish conversation with the customer in a positive manner. Also, people searching reviews will read the conversation and will realize how you make amends on negative experiences.bad reviews 03

At the end, after having decided to either refund their money or fix the issue by offering an extra service, you can now ask him/her nicely to re-write the review or make a positive comment about the solution to the problem.

Resolve it out of the public eye. This is another step you could take by sending one personal message to the reviewer and search for a solution that doesn’t involve making a long conversation online to avoid drawing more attention to the review. Once the problem is resolved offline you could ask the customer to reconsider updating the review if they were satisfied with the way the situation was solved. This could be a different approach to the last point, in which you can avoid a possible misunderstanding online and discuss in a more personal way to solve the issue. Even if the customer doesn’t delete the comment, you can post the steps you followed to address this situation and let people know that you make an effort to maintain good relationships with your customers.

Check for fake bad reviews. Yes, it could be possible that you’re dealing with the competitor or maybe an angry ex- employee. What you need to do first is to ensure that the review is fraudulent. Then, report this issue to the site the review was posted on – review sites like Yelp or Google Places for business have specific mechanisms to follow regarding fraudulent reviews). Once you report it and the site is sure that it’s indeed a fake review, it will disappear. The Federal Trade Commission has recently set precedent by punishing companies that write fraudulent comments; you could reach out to them as well.

bad reviews 04Let’s send the bad to the bottom. Be proactive! Another good thing that you could do to forget about bad comments is to encourage your loyal customers that are satisfied with the service you offer to write good reviews and comment about their experience with your service. This will send any bad review down the page, and you’ll have more positive comments for potential customers to read about your service on top (they would have to scroll down a bit to find the bad review). This weakens the bad reviews by showing that it was possibly an exception and not something that happens often.

What do you think? Comment below if you think there’s another solution to bad comments on review sites.