How To Be Proactive with Bad Online Reviews

Bad Reviews – How to Deal with Them Quickly and Effectively

Everyone has an opinion, and unfortunately as a business owner some of these opinions could cause your business a great deal of trouble. Managing your online reputation has become a must-do item on your daily checklist. Fail to do it, and you might find people deserting you in droves. Bad reviews are a fact of online life. They are very easy to post, and will often influence large segments of the target audience in your favor or not. The key is having much more of the positive to outweigh the inevitable negative.

What to do with a negative review

Here are three steps to proactively deal with the sporadic negative review.

1. Customer service ought to be a top priority – Many times the reason companies are working with a especially nasty online review is that they neglected to attend to business when the problem first appeared. Oftentimes the customer attempted to reach out, but received no response, and felt as if they had no choice but to air their problems online at a review site. A great deal of this can be avoided by having a proactive process with respect to monitoring your onsite and social media channels, so you’ll know when a problem appears.
2. Deal professionally with people – Whatever you do, don’t inflame the problem by turning to vitriolic he said, she said types of scenarios online. This will NEVER work in your favor, even if you are right. Remain professional, generous, and don’t forget you are trying to keep a customer, or at worst not lose more of them! The truly problem customers are few, and not worth the possible damage they could do should you get in it with them!
3. Encourage good reviews – One of the better ways for you to actively really make a difference is by encouraging and even rewarding positive reviews of your services or products. Get an ample amount of these on a regular basis, and the infrequent negative review won’t stand a chance of remaining high in the search results. On the contrary, they will most likely provide you with even more customers!

The bottom line in dealing with negative reviews is to be aware when they occur, handle customers with respect and professionalism, and make managing your online reputation a top priority! In this day of instant communication, you virtually have no choice!