Given that online statistics powerhouse Statista claims the average consumer reads 10 reviews before trusting a business, how well is your online business reputation performing?
Additionally, proving that negative press has more impact. Some 97% of consumers reported that bad online reviews referencing poor customer service changed their buying behaviour, while a lower 87% admitted that online reviews of good customer service changed their buying behaviour.
Table of Contents
Everyone has an online reputation. The question is do you have any say in yours?
Online reputation should be a key consideration of your normal day to day marketing strategy and not just left to chance.
It is the normal cost of being in business today that you will encounter bad press at some point.
For the vast majority of small to medium businesses, the type of bad press they will encounter will be online consumer reviews left on sites such as Tripadvisor, Yelp, Business news websites, Trustpilot and Google Reviews.
But given that there is so much at stake from bad reviews harming your online business reputation, it is crucial that you take each bad review as an opportunity to improve and reduce the future likelihood of a similar review.
You cannot change the past. But you should learn from it.
If you get an bad online review take a breath and look at it objectively. If the review is false and deliberately designed to cause you harm, you need to tread carefully and employ an online business reputation specialist who can advise you how best to proceed, based upon their experience.
For the purpose of this post, we are looking at genuine reviews that are negative and how they impact your online business reputation and how best to tackle them.
Investigate the circumstances that led to the bad review
Before you even think about responding you need to review the events that led to the negative customer experience which the resulted in the review.
Your aim here is to not look at the reviewer as the enemy but someone whom has had a negative experience after buying your product or service. Before the bad review, this person was a customer so it is important to see things from your customers perspective so you can try and prevent the same issue and same type of review happening again.
Was the bad review partially to fully justified?
Many people upon getting a bad online review get defensive and can easily fall into a siege mentality were emotionally gets the better of them.
You should be getting the hints I am leaving here in that the worst thing you can do is respond to a review in anger, especially if there is at least some justification behind the bad review.
Its key here to look at the review as an opportunity to tell your story and offer some perspective. You only have to look at real life examples in local press from a restaurant that attacks its customers who leave a genuine review and how it can make matters much much worse.
If the review is partially justified but also contains exaggerated statements then with careful consideration, your response should be balanced in offering sincere regret for the things you did get wrong and how you intend to address them. But dont be afraid to address the validity of the exaggerated statements so long as you are 100% confident they lack justification and you can respond without pouring fuel on the proverbial fire.
Imagine future customers reading your response to a bad review
When seeking to respond to a bad review that you are worried may impact your online business reputation, you should be sincere, or seem sincere at least and you should address the original complaint .
As mentioned above, if the original complaint is valid then a sincere apology that you got things wrong (or some things wrong and some right) this one time, but you would welcome to the opportunity to put things right is a common and effective response as you are addressing the complaint, apologising and putting it on record that it is a mistake and not the norm, plus you are inviting the person back to see you at your best.
Additionally, when reviewing your response to the bad review and how your online business reputation maybe impacted, dont forget to look at the situation from the perspective of a future customer and if you were in their shoes, do you feel the review was adequate, sincere and addressed the issue?
Crucially, if you saw the review and your response about another business (and not yours) would you be persuaded to give the business a chance?
If you’re not sure, call in the professionals.
Response templates and using the stock replies?
If you find you are responding to the same complaint over and over again, it isnt a response template you need, its a resolution to the poor performance leading to these reviews.
Put yourself in the shoes of the consumer and if you were reading these reviews and just saw the same review, the same stock apology and you sure this happening over a period of time its just human nature to say, “hmm this isnt a one off, this is how they operate”
You can only apologise so much before you become insincere by your actions, or rather lack of action in addressing the issue with words and inaction.
Given that the opening line about the average consumer reading 10 reviews before trusting a business, how well is your online business reputation performing and do you keep getting bad reviews?
Need some help from the professionals?
Online Reputation Management is a service that uses elements of customer relationship management, digital marketing, SEO for your Business Website and PR skills and experience to help a business enhance its online business reputation and with some reputation consultants, such as Edible, the online reputation work can include business operations management consultancy and business improvement to tackle the route cause of the bad reviews, and not just the symptoms.
