One of the fastests ways to have your company’s reputation go downhill are bad reviews. The ever increasing popularity of social media can launch a single bad review into a top story on any online news source. According to a survey conducted by Dimensional Research, 88% of individuals were influenced by by customer reviews before making a purchase.

 

Why do online review sites matter?

Yelp is one of the largest online review sites with over 120 million reviews. If you haven’t created a yelp account yet for your business, we strongly suggestion making one soon. The reason being is that if you don’t create one for your company, someone else will and that will make it more difficult for you to respond to any complaints. It is your best interest to have the complaints or bad reviews posted on a platform that you control. This way you can also be alerted when someone posts a review so you can react quickly to the situation.

 

How should I approach upset customers?

• Apologize no matter the circumstance and do not take on the defensive. Make sure you sound genuine when doing so. A half-hearted apology may only aggravate the customer further.
• You should always try to respond as promptly as possible. By doing so, you show to the customer that you care and are willing to take the initiative. It also shows to other customers who read reviews what kind of service they can expect from you. If the customer felt they had a particularly bad experience and are still feeling upset, responding quickly also helps douse the flames before it becomes something bigger.
• Avoid any sort of automated response and make your reply more personal to the individual. The customer wants to feel that they are being heard and that their feelings are valid. Any response that sounds like it was simply copy pasted will further isolate them from you.
• Do not answer bad reviews or comments with sass, even if the customer is being rude or if it is obvious that they are a troll. While there have been some instances of companies handling negative comments with tongue and cheek it is not a guaranteed to work and it is not recommended. More often than not, a defensive response will not end well. Always be courteous and thoughtful.
• If the customer is incorrect or perhaps misunderstood something that lead them to being upset let them know but do so politely. A good way of prefacing a correction would be, “We apologize for the misunderstanding”. You want to be careful as to not embarrass them or make them feel humiliated. Another option would be to call or contact them directly to clear up things without doing it in the public eye.

 

What if that’s not enough?

There are some individuals who will post negative comments for the sake of being mean or causing your company harm. These are individuals can be referred to as trolls. While you do not want to delete or hide all negative comments/reviews (and keep in mind Yelp does not allow businesses to remove reviews) you do want to know where to draw the line and how to recognize an upset customer from a troll.

It is vital to know that you cannot win an argument against a troll. They will not listen to reason no matter how polite you may be or how earnestly you may try to solve the situation. These sorts of individuals post terrible comments as a way to seek attention and are often hyperbolic or use crude language. In many cases they probably never even shopped or dealt with your company and have simply become their desired target.

Do not take a troll’s comment to heart as they do not see the individuals behind your company nor are they targeting them. All they want is an outlet to project themselves onto. In some cases, simply ignoring them is enough. If you feel that contact is necessary you can try speaking to them directly, thank them for their feedback, and leave it at that. However, some trolls may take it too far and action is needed for the sake of your customers.

Comments or reviews containing foul language, for example, should be removed out of courtesy for others. Inappropriate remarks, be they sexual or racial, should also be removed. In fact, most online review platforms and social media sites have guidelines that prohibit this sort of behavior. In cases like these you can report/flag the review or comment and the website itself may take it down.

If they are persistent and continue to post inappropriately you can report the individual as well and have them either banned from your page or from the website entirely depending on the extent of their behavior. Keep in mind that reporting or attempting to ban an individual should be a last resort option.

 

How do I get more positive feedback?

From that same aforementioned survey by Dimensional Media, 45% of consumers share their bad experience with a company via social media versus 30% of consumers who share a positive experience. An upset customer is more likely to post a review or comment than a happy one, particularly when it comes to online review sites.

You can combat this and improve your online reputation by having your loyal customers post positive reviews about their experience with your company. If you have any sort of internal rewards program you can also award points for any reviews they post either on your own site or 3rd party platforms such as yelp and google plus.

More positive reviews also help to increase your rating, making your company look better upon first glance. In fact, a one-star increase in positive reviews can hike up your profits by 5-9%. Bad reviews and trolls will be inevitable but positive feedback can balance out the negative. Just remember to take the criticism in stride and don’t let the haters get to you.