Negative Reviews Create Business Growth Potential

Negative reviews can be painful, but if you use them correctly, they can give you the information you need to make changes, meet customer needs, and provide exactly what you need to grow your business!

The Power of Negative Reviews

Negative reviews:

• Provide customer feedback
• Alert you to issues needing addressing
• Give you an opportunity to mend bridges
• Give you clues to the changing needs of your customers
• Give you a chance to show the quality of your customer service

Of course this doesn't mean that getting a negative review is fun or should be sought, but they are also not without value. 

Handling a Negative Review

Steps to take:

1. Respond to the reviewer preferably within 24 hours of the post expressing your concern and desire to mend bridges and resolve complaints. 
2. Look for any patterns or similar reviews - for example, if you see three reviews about the cranky service technician you have on staff, it's time to do some re-training of your employees to make sure they are serving with a smile. 
3. Take action - make any necessary changes to your business or practices.
4. Monitor your reviews for any new feedback.
5. Ask your happy clients to write reviews to solidify your online reputation.

Negative reviews smart, but you can be smart about them by paying attention, responding, and making any necessary changes to help your business grow. 

Negative Reviews: Issues of Customer No-Service

Unfortunately, there are many examples of how to get your customers to write bad reviews for you and Comcast just hit on one of them - arguing with a customer who wants to end service.




There surely will be employee training for this individual and Comcast is planning a formal apology for their behavior, but it actually hits on many different issues we as business owners have to be constantly considering.

How to Handle Negative Reviews

• Listening to the customer - Sometimes the business is simply not a good fit for the customer and the business needs to gracefully end service. If you want to amplify your reputation, help the customer find what he or she needs.
• Set the tone - As the leaders in our businesses, we have to set the tone for our employees. Yes, we need to make sales. Yes, we need to be mindful of upselling and retaining customers. Yes, we need feedback when a customer intends to leave us, but NO, we do not argue with customers. Service is the key word in customer service.
• Staff development training - All employees need to be aware of the serious power of online reviews. Consumers have a loud voice in social media and on online review websites. When poor customer service is captured and goes viral, business owners need to know how to respond and do so quickly, but far better to not get into that mess in the first place. 
• Long-term impact - Online reviews impact revenue and changes in review ratings can increase or decrease your ROI.

Building a solid online reputation takes time and focused effort. Don't wait for a crisis to address yours. 

Losing Customers? Pay Attention to Your Online Reviews!

How many options do you have for where you go out eat? How about for where you do your banking? Where you buy your hardware supplies? Who grooms your dog?

As consumers, most of us have plenty of options and businesses to choose from and we will go where we feel we get that combination of excellent quality combined with customer service. This also means we are fairly intolerant of poor customer service. As business owners then, we need to be stepping up our customer service to make sure we foster loyalty that will not only keep our current customers, but will attract others!

An infographic put out by Drumbi (a customer service company), shared statistics from a recent American Express survey that suggests that many companies are simply not listening to the customer feedback being generated.

How sad is that?  They could have left angry and never said a word, but they made the effort to reach out to the businesses they frequented and they were ignored!

With almost 90% of consumers moving on to competitors after a bad customer service experience and about half of consumers giving companies only one week to respond to their questions before they choose to leave, now is the time to not only know what is being said online about your company, but also to be responding to your customers.

I was working up an initial evaluation of a company new to managing their online reputation and what stood out as I read through their many various #reviews was the number of times their customers posted questions they hoped would be answered by the company and the number of people who said something to the effect of "I'm posting this in hopes someone from (company XXX) will read this."

It left me wondering how many of those same people continued on with that company and how many gave up and tried one of the competitors.

We have a great tool in online review websites, IF we pay attention and IF we connect with our customers. Will you?

Ann Pearson is the CEO of Impressions Review Managing, LLC - a company committed to empowering businesses to manage their online reputations. For more information about the services IRM offers, visit www.impressionsrm.com or email Ann at impressionsrm@gmail.com. 

Online Marketing - DON'T Ignore Your Customers

I came across an excellent infographic today at Zendesk that gives spot on information on how some negative reviews end up being posted.

The part that really caught my eye was their statistic that 96% of online complaints were a result of double disappointments meaning that something had happened to upset the consumer and then, when they tried to get the matter resolved, they were wronged again.

These things happen to even the best of companies - a series of honest errors, a day where technology fails us completely, or the customer falls prey to a weak link in our system or staffing. It is frustrating to everyone, but when the customer goes public with his or her complaint, if we are paying attention, it can give us the opportunity to right the wrong... or wrongs as the case may be!

If you've checked out my website, you know that I advocate for very careful monitoring of reviews that are posted about your business for just this kind of situation. As soon as you know a negative post has been made, take action to reach the customer and work on mending those bridges. The longer you wait, the more people will see the negative review post and the more damage it will do.

If your business is one where you know your clients and have access to their contact information, the best thing you can do is to pick up the phone and call the customer with a personal apology. Work to determine where the problem(s) originated and offer a solution or recompense.

In situations where you do not have the ability to call the customer, be sure you reach out to them as soon as possible on the public forum where they posted the negative review. Don't go into great detail in your response, but let them know that you have heard their complaint and that you'd like to try to make it right. Ask him or her to contact you and make sure you provide both an email address and a phone number that you will personally check.

Be very careful when you post publicly - remember that your audience is no longer just the person who was wronged. Your audience is now that person and everyone else who is reading along - every potential customer deciding if he or she should use your services or turn to your competitors. It is always in your best interest to be kind!

Hopefully most of this is common sense to you and you can relate to your customer having experienced the double-whammy as a consumer yourself when things just don't go right.

Keep an eye on maintaining excellent customer relations, monitor all of the major review sites closely, and be quick to make amends and you should be able to avoid a customer service fiasco!

Ann M. Pearson is the CEO of Impressions Review Managing, LLC - an online review managing and monitoring service for businesses new to review websites. If your business is needing assistance handling negative reviews or monitoring the high number of review sites, please check our website and program information at