In today’s world, where customer satisfaction is the most important entity for product owners for their services offered. Any negative review towards your product / service can be a damning verdict and can hamper your business. According to a report by Dimensional Research, it says close to 90% of customer buying decisions are influenced by online reviews / feedback. Companies can no longer take customer satisfaction for granted and need to fix their negative online reviews. So get to know how to fix your online negative reviews.
Find below 7 easy ways to fix your online negative reviews:
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Properly assess the negative review:
When you first receive a bad review, as a product owner, it is your job to assess the review. Examine what made the customer to give this negative review. On many occasions when we see a negative review, we usually resort to kneejerk reaction and get defensive, are apologetic or argue in the face of criticism. It is here where you need to take a moment and assess the review before taking an action. Get to know the root cause of this negative review, was it because of your product or services vs. experience. Each problem will have a different solution and see how you can solve this.
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Make appropriate changes:
This is a crucial step to fix your online negative reviews and fix core problems that are causing these negative reviews / comments. It has been seen that on many occasions people leave unfair comments on business every now and then. Ensure you are giving your business a fair assessment. You may feel a negative review is a tough blow. But, if the review is genuine, then it gives you a chance to correct yourself which would not have been possible if it wasn’t for that negative review. If you believe you can tweak few things to make your customers happier, then you should go ahead and do it without a second thought.
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Don’t tackle fire with fire:
Do not make things worse when you receive a negative review. When people do not know how to fix negative reviews, they just spew even more negative comments towards the reviewer. This will make you look very unprofessional and your reputation gets tarnished even more. As stated above, the more the negative reviews, more the customers will be influenced. Hence, leave the negative review alone if you do not know what to do. Better create a strategy to flush out the negative comment with other positive comments from your customers.
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Improve your positive reviews elsewhere:
Today, there are many websites such as ‘Yelp’ where people review and rate your product / service. If you are unfairly on one particular site with negative reviews for no reason, then you can beef up your positive reviews on various other such sites. By doing this you can push down the bad website where there are negative reviews and only sites that have positive reviews will be showcased. You could easily get help of a social media expert to solve this issue for you.
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Build positive reviews to reduce negative ones:
This is a crucial step to dilute negative reviews and improve your online reputation. Because you don’t have any control over feedback on many of the review sites and social media, you can simply reduce the number of bad reviews by building up more positive ones.
You have to be extra careful to not solicit your customers to review them on feedback sites or social media. You can put a subtle message saying “Do visit us on Yelp!” or keep your social media icons on your website so that people can share their positive experience. This way, with more positive reviews all the negative reviews will go down or get diluted in the process.
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Don’t give critics to take free shots at you:
It is the case with many businesses across the globe. Many people criticize even when your product is superior and the customer service is impeccable. Many businesses just let negative reviews or criticism to slip and giving them to take free shots at you. This is a bad scenario for a company, you have to respond to each and every review, either thanking them for a positive review or engaging in a dialogue when there is a negative review. When there is constant interaction with your customers on feedback sites and social media, you are engaging with your customers and you may as well change their view if they had a bad experience. While engaging in a dialogue with your customers, make sure you are always respectful towards them, but do not lie down and let others take free shots at you.
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Turn the table on its head:
People often make a mountain out of a mole. It is often seen that when handled properly, the people who complain the loudest can be the most vocal brand ambassador online. Always remember, try to salvage some or the other thing from a negative review. Than writing off negative reviewers completely by not attending to them, you can try salvaging it by satisfying them and then turn them into a repeat customer. The best part of this whole activity is that you are being respectful towards the reviewer and in such situations your response will make you look better, while disapprove with the negative reviewer.
Conclusion:
Negative online reviews can either make or break your business. If it is an unfair criticism, then tackle them with utmost priority and carefully. If the criticisms are fair then improve your product/services, it is one way how you can improve your business and make sure the impact of negative online reviews is minimal to none.
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