post by Stephanie Nelson
This weekend is Valentine’s Day. As the rest of the world focuses on love and all its goodness, let’s talk about when you don’t feel the love…like, when you get a bad review.
As the old saying goes, you can please some of the people all of the time or all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time. You’ve gotten a bad review online. Don’t panic – it happens to the best of us. The more important thing is how you handle it. A few pointers:
- Do not respond negatively. Put your customer service hat on and sympathize with the reviewer, then offer reconciliation.
- A quick response will let your customers know that you care and that you listen to critiques.
- The response that you send back to this review will tell the person who wrote the review as well as the rest of the world that you are a caring business who pays attention to what people think and feel. The person who sent this review will receive notification of your response and may choose to respond back.
- If the person who wrote this review chooses to contact you and resolve the issue, they have the power to remove the bad review or write a response to their own review telling about their positive experience.
- In writing your response, make sure to give the reviewer your contact information.
- Even if the reviewer is wrong in his or her accusation, apologize. Your apology can be along the lines of “I’m sorry this is the impression our company left with you.” But apologize nonetheless.
- Thank the reviewer for taking the time to share his/her experience since that helps you to make others’ experiences better.
Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net