Reputation
is critical for your business. With your audience having unlimited access to search engines, social networks and review sites, reputation management is a priority.
Reasons why your company may be receiving negative comments can vary. Some are:
- Dissatisfied customers; they were offered a bad service or received a low quality product.
- Lack of a professional image that projects an incorrect view of your business. It may lack quality and professionalism on social media profiles. It could use inaccurate information, bad advertising or images. Profiles must be current, clear and in professional.
- No interaction. A cold, boring or distant image will hurt your reputation. You must interact with your community. Prospects and clients need to know about the people behind the business. They have to trust before buying.
- Spam is abusive. Social networking is a place to connect with prospects and clients. It educates your audience of your products and services. When a business overwhelms with advertisements, sales and other promotions on their potential clients’ media and through email, it is detrimental to the business’s online reputation.
Reacting To Poor Reviews
Many bad reviews are not even legitimate. Here are some ways to deal with discontented clients:
You must genuinely make amends: Offer a genuine apology if your company provided a defective product or poor service. When a client is legitimately upset about this, the best reaction is to engage them and offer to compensate. It does not cost much to offer a positive experience to an unhappy client. It costs much more for the business to be ruined by unresolved bad reviews.
Watch for “agreeing-to-bad-reviews” customers: a single review that is not a big deal can become a huge issue when other clients agree with them. They join a force of “me too” responses that can gain momentum and will cause damage to your reputation. Do not allow this to get away from you. Address the source immediately. Compensation can often turn the situation around.
When a person is angry, do not take it personally: there are days when a customer just wakes up on the wrong side of the bed; they are angry at everything. The negative comment may remain but engaging the person will only attract more negativity. If the comment is not offensive or defamatory, just let it lie. Sufficient positive comments resulting from proactive management can counteract bad reviews.
What is Your Response To Bad Reviews?
The first action to take is to use a monitoring system for your social media. Popular consumer review sites should also be monitored constantly to discover what people are saying about your business. Set up Google Alerts and use other tracking tools to receive reports on your online management performance.
Then, watch. Reading negative comments will never be enjoyable, but they inform you of areas your company can improve. When the review is arbitrary, without foundation, just let it go.
When reviews have been identified that require your attention, be diplomatic. Defensive, offensive, aggressive or sarcastic comments only make matters worse. Deal with the review privately or publicly, depending it’s nature. Whatever is best for your reputation and for the client’s outcome should be implemented.
Finally and as mentioned before, the best answer to a bad review often is admitting your mistake. Stating that you wish to make it right and resolve the situation can turn around an angry customer., and demonstrate to your audience that you are proactive and genuine.
When you are truly committed to your online reputation, your audience will see consistency. Clients that see consistent feedback realize that the business cares about them and are more inclined to be loyal to your brand. Poor online reputation that is dealt with effectively and consistently can be turned into a positive experience for your company.
See how we can work with you to improve your reputation, with our reputation management service.