Responding to Negative Reviews: Be Nice, Not Naughty

Handling Negative Reviews

Negative reviews hurt - no doubt about it. They impact your online marketing, your SEO (Search Engine Optimization), and the reputation of your brand, products, and services. Beyond that, they feel like a personal attack. But, what can you do?

How to Respond

• Promptly - Just like any good customer service response, you want to take action on a negative review as soon as possible and preferably within the first 24 to 48 hours following the review posting. 
• Sincerely - If your company blew it, take ownership of the mistake, apologize, and work to mend bridges. If it was a misunderstanding, gently clarify and offer to speak with the consumer in person or by phone to make things right.
• Generously - Assume some of the responsibility if you can, go out of your way to cut the consumer some slack, and assume the best in the client.
• Personally - The best place to hold the conversation is offline, so request the person call or visit you to work the issue through.
• Circumspectly - Remember that others considering your business are reading along, so you are posting for the general public. Be kind and calm in your response.

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After the Storm - Generating New Reviews

Hopefully, your efforts to mend bridges will result in the customer amending or removing his or her review, but if not, be sure you step up your efforts to generate new reviews from your happy clients.

Remember, Impressions Review Managing is here to help - contact our friendly team for more assistance.

Reviews Promote Your Business Online

People are turning to online reviews in droves both to share their favorites and concerns as well as to research what others are saying about products and services. Promoting your business online begins with an excellent, web-friendly website for your business, but people won't get to your website and eventually to your business if your reviews and star-ratings are less than impressive.

Let's look at the statistics:

• Depending on the study, anywhere from 79% to 97% of people are turning to the internet to look up information on products and services before they make a purchase. 
• About 80% of consumers trust online reviews as much or more than personal recommendations. 
• Having reviews (as opposed to having none) can increase sales 40%.
• In a study on assisted-living facilities, inquiries went up 550% for sites with reviews compared to those without!
• An increase of one star rating on Yelp can lead to a 5% increase in revenue.
• 89% of consumers are willing to pay more for products or services in order to have better customer service. 

Why wait any longer? Take control of your online reputation by claiming your business' online review website pages, monitoring what is being said about your business, interacting with reviewers, and generating new client feedback. 

www.impressionsrm.com 

Promoting Your Business with Online Conversations

#onlinemarketing #onlinereviews

The nature of online marketing makes it possible for you to be promoting your business by participating in online conversations with your current and prospective customers. Doing just a little digging you will find great examples of relationship building and customer service on all of the review websites. Take a look at these examples of business replies:

You can see that these businesses know how to interact with their clients online whether the feedback is positive or negative. Prospective clients researching these places are sure to gain a sense of the commitment to excellence and determination of these owners!

Join the conversation and start showing your prospective customers that you are hearing their voices and care about their input. It's a great way to be promoting your business online!

Web Marketing - Aren't Negative Reviews Great?!

Web marketing wouldn't be complete without addressing negative reviews...

Fortunately, most people are too polite to say what they think directly to your face, but if they are unhappy with your business, you can rest assured that they ARE saying it...somewhere. 

The best part about having negative reviews is that you will be completely aware that there is a problem that needs to be addressed. You can't fix something if you don't know it's broken!

Of course sometimes what happened to cause the upset was nothing more than a series of misunderstandings or unusual mishaps. Do your best to smooth things over with the client and assure him or her that such things do not typically happen and you will work hard to make sure their experience is a positive one. After all, it's much less expensive to keep an existing customer than it is to attract a new one. 

Sometimes the reviewer is not clear in his or her review and you won't know if what they are saying is accurate or what events caused them to feel the way they do, but most of the review websites will allow you to interact with reviewers, so take the time to find out!

Replying to a negative review can be as simple as saying, "I am so sorry that you had a negative experience with us! I'd like the chance to make this right with you - would you be willing to give me a call at (555)-555-1212?" The most important thing to keep in mind is that what you write will be seen by any and everyone researching your business - BE NICE in what you post. 

Let your customers know that you paying attention to and really care about the feedback they are giving. Negative reviews can give you the power to make wise business improvement decisions - give reviews a significant portion of your web marketing attention.

#webmarketing #onlinemarketing #negativereview

www.impressionsrm.com 

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.