How To Respond To Negative Reviews

Negative Reviews: Reviews are important for any type of business, but especially for local businesses and corner stores. With the growth of digitization, the user is increasingly looking for more about a particular product or service on the Internet. Having positive comments will help you attract quality traffic. Do you know what you should do when you receive negative reviews ?

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React to both positive and negative reviews

For potential customers, online reviews are essential. For example, before reserving a hotel and making a high economic investment, you should make sure of the experience of others in the past. In fact, this type of criticism is also very important for the SEO of a website . For a few years, Google has taken these comments and ratings into account. Within what is known as local SEO and usually appears in Google My Business .

These comments serve to express the opinion of your customers about your brand. In this sense, it is important that you respond regardless of whether the assessment is positive or negative . In this way, you are showing your audience that you care about what consumers think of your work.

Don’t forget that when you reply to one user, you’re actually responding to everyone else who sees your reviews. This will help you gain credibility among your potential customers.

What reviews should you respond to?

You do not need to respond to each and every comment. Nevertheless:

It is important that you do it to get negative reviews .

You will show empathy for the poor service they may have received and communicate that you are willing to offer solutions. An unhappy customer is the worst for you.

You can also respond to evaluations that are very positive. Especially if they are elaborate and complete.

In this way you will promote your brand and amplify the enthusiasm received for doing things well. Try not to respond in the same way to everyone, but in a personalized way.

How to respond to negative reviews

To achieve a good result when responding to negative reviews , it is advisable to follow these tips to carry out a good crisis communication strategy.

Keep calm

It is never easy to give an answer to a negative evaluation . Even, in many cases, the comment may seem unfair, since the tone is rude. Initially, you may feel upset or angry. For this reason, before saying something you might regret, take your time.

Prepare a plan

Opportunities can also arise from negative comments . It’s nice to have predefined responses that you can use. In this way you will only have to adapt the response to the specific situation of the user. Having something prepared can help you act correctly when your nerves are on the surface.

Investigate the problem

A negative review is just a red flag. It is important that you take these types of situations seriously. Start an investigation to clarify what happened.

Apologize for what may have happened, find the bug and correct it. For example, if you have a restaurant, perhaps the dish has not been up to par.

Be short and concise

Don’t beat around the bush when giving an answer. No one, especially an unhappy customer, wants to read something very long. Also, let someone else read it before you send it. Having a second perspective will also help you. Above all, do not enter the rag.

There are situations in which you may disagree with the comment. Answer once or twice max, but don’t play along.