Even the best businesses can’t make everyone happy.
Inevitably, it will happen…
Despite your relentless pursuit of delivering a consistently excellent client experience, something will go wrong.
Maybe a trainer loses their cool, maybe there’s construction in your complex, or maybe your client was just having a bad day.
The bottom line is that no business is safe from negative reviews.
So what do you do when someone posts a less than favorable review of you online?
We’re glad you asked.
Let’s break it down!
Step 1: Strive For A Timely Response
You can’t ignore them.
A best practice is to create a standard feedback loop with all your online communication, including how long it takes you to respond to questions, concerns, and reviews.
As a general rule of thumb, the sooner you respond to a negative review, the better. That being said, take a little time to make sure you’re calm and collected. Anything you put online has the potential to stay there forever. So make sure you’re in a reasonable frame of mind to respond.
Pro Tip: Don’t pass this off to your admin. It’s valuable market research and critical insight for you to have as a business owner (even if it’s not fun to read).
Step 2: Seek To Understand
Take a minute to exercise empathy.
Can you see their perspective?
You don’t necessarily have to agree with them. But you must defuse tension and aim for understanding. You should try to display this empathy in your response. If you do this well, it’ll position you as a thoughtful business leader who genuinely wants to deliver an extraordinary experience (and is concerned if they aren’t living up to that).
Other readers will respect you more for taking this stance and will be more likely to do business with you despite a bad review.
Step 3: Make It Right
The best thing you can do is propose solutions. This doesn’t mean that the reviewer will take you up on that, but everyone else will see you taking steps to turn this situation around for the other party.
You might lose this client or prospect but save your reputation, and ultimately that’s more important to the future of your business than one person will be.
Step 4: Move The Conversation Offline
Invite the reviewer to engage in conversation with you. This will allow you to gather more detailed and insightful feedback. It’s also a chance for you to express that empathy in person or over the phone where they can feel your sincerity.
You just might even win them back over!
Step 5: Manage Your Online Reputation
One negative review shouldn’t impact your business to any meaningful degree because you should be asking your current clients to leave you plenty of high-quality positive reviews.
Review sites are an essential form of social proof.
93% of customers say they check online reviews before making a purchase decision (qualtrics), which means you can’t afford not to be making them part of your marketing strategy.
You have to control the narrative of your business online, and reviews are a great way to start if you’re not already.
So there you have it.
Five steps to handling negative reviews like a pro. So now that you’re an expert on managing your online reputation, you’ll need to start gathering a substantial amount of positive reviews from your clients. Luckily, Naamly makes this possible with the push of a button! Schedule a demo to see how Naamly can help you deliver a consistently stellar client experience!