Your clients or customers get the scoop on how you handle business by looking online. Often, those customers believe reviews are honest encounters with your business, and how you handle a negative review can win you a sale or lose you a following—think of it as digital word-of-mouth advertising.
And think of negative reviews as a chance to show off those “exceptional customer service” skills.
Negative reviews give you the chance to interact positively with your customers. These trust-building encounters set the tone of who you are and how you do business. Responding to negative as well as positive reviews shows that you care about your product, quality, and client.
When given the choice, isn’t that who you would do business with?
Why should I care about negative business reviews online?
No one likes wasting money. Think about your behavior when researching a product or service. Do you look for bad reviews to try and make a good judgment call and avoid cringing at your bad investment later? Do you think they paint a more accurate picture?
Your clients or customers get the scoop on how you handle business by looking online. Often, those customers believe reviews are honest encounters with your business, and how you handle a negative review can win you a sale or lose you a following—think of it as digital word-of-mouth advertising.
And think of negative reviews as a chance to show off those “exceptional customer service” skills.
Negative reviews give you the chance to interact positively with your customers. These trust-building encounters set the tone of who you are and how you do business. Responding to negative as well as positive reviews shows that you care about your product, quality, and client.
When given the choice, isn’t that who you would do business with?
I just got my first negative review, what should I say?
We’re glad you feel so protective of your reputation, that’s a good place to start, and we’re all human. Someone on either side could have had a bad day or any number of other possibilities in our unpredictable daily human lives.
Now, let’s move on from this place of empathy.
As our seasoned Strategic Account Manager, Amber Lovin, points out, “Negative comments aren’t fun, but they’re an excellent opportunity to let the company culture speak for itself.” In other words, it’s time to put your best foot forward.
Amber continued to say your acknowledgment of the reviewer’s perspective is a great first step. Ask them to reach out to a particular teammate to discuss the issue and how you can make it right.
Something like this: “We’re sorry your experience wasn’t positive. Making sure our customers feel heard and satisfied is of utmost importance to us – please reach out via email/phone at ______ if you’d like to provide further details. We’d love to make things right.”
And whatever you do, keep taking Amber’s Advice. She emphatically said, “Do not respond aggressively – as tempting as it may be sometimes. This means try to avoid passive-aggressive speech, finger-pointing, mocking, et cetera.”
Remember, what you say on the internet can last forever. Make the right impression.
About Channel Fusion
For more than 20 years, Channel Fusion has been delivering strategy, customer experience and return on investment outcomes for brands and their channel partners with a wide variety of solutions and industry expertise. We continue to invest in the overall ecosystem of our channel marketing offering to ensure our clients can provide their channel partners with an optimal customer experience to drive results. Our core technologies and connected platform are supported by a team of customer-centric “Fusers.”
To serve the expanding channel programs and needs of our clients, including numerous Fortune 500 companies, we formed Digital Fusion to bring ready-to-roll digital marketing bundles for franchisees and brand dealers.
Sound like you? If you’re a local business—needing local strategy—and working with the leading brands consumers want, we can help with more than rebates and incentives. Get easy digital marketing services with rock-solid ROI you can measure, all powered by dealer co-op funds. Get in touch with Digital Fusion today.