1Negative reviews can easily affect your business 91% of consumers now read online reviews about businesses before making a purchase, thus making customer reviews extremely important!
When people leave a review they have taken the time out of their day to leave online feedback, Importantly, warning people about an experience, product or customer service can help future customers make a better decision on who to buy from.
Online reviews can control your businesses online perception. Customer feedback can mean the difference between making sales or not and in recent years reviews have become such a big part o3f the buying process for so many customers. Reviews give the customers power, as a result, customers aren’t afraid to leave a bad review, should they have an unfavourable experience. That being said, not all bad reviews are called for, perhaps you have a disgruntled ex-employee or a customer just looking for a freebie, it’s not often but on the odd occasion can happen.
Top reasons for leaving bad reviews
- To help others make an informed buying decision
- A warning to the online community of bad products
- To share bad customer service experiences
- Helping to improve company product/service
- Personal concerns and too high expectations
How to address bad reviews!
Always reply to all reviews good or bad! Contact the customer and identify the issue, show that you are keen to understand their concerns. In some cases, reaching out to your customer privately and giving a further apology as proven statics show 32% expect a private message or email regarding the review.
If the feedback is genuine and the mistake is on behalf of your company, staff or products then offering a replacement product or discount code for next purchase with the company is a good step to keeping that customer and perhaps obtaining new ones. The visual way you handle reviews says as much about you as a company as it does about the reviewer.
Don’t play the blame game. In some circumstance it may be the customer who is wrong, perhaps their expectations were too high, maybe they were rude to your staff or just having a bad day. You will never please everyone, but in cases like this, you need to address the situation and set the record straight. See our example
Bad feedback ” We ordered our meal at 6:30 and it took over half an hour to get our meals”
Reply “Dear customer, we are sorry that your wait was longer than expected, Saturdays are one of our busiest nights of the week and the host should have mentioned to you that the wait could be up to 45 minutes. We would be happy to send you a voucher for 20% off your next visit. Please contact our team directly to discuss your concerns.”
Another way to help diminish the power of negative reviews is to earn more positive ones. Not only will this push the bad review down out of the most recent reviews, but it will also help your customers see that although you have the odd bad review, there are lots of positive reviews sharing how great your products or services are.
Top reasons for leaving good reviews
- To tell others that you had a good experience
- To compare with other companies
- Reward or thank the company
- If they were prompted to leave feedback
Power of positive review
Positive reviews help your business to gain a better reputation and improve customer trust. These will also provide potential customers with a shortcut for their research to make a faster decision with good influence from your customer feedback. If you are collecting lots of positive feedback on a regular basis, then when the dreaded negative one crops up it won’t have as much of an impact. This highlights how reviews can be a powerful asset for a business!
How can we help YOU!
Grow your business with Netreview
Our Netreview service can help you manage your negative reviews and turn positive reviews into more business, get more reviews on autopilot and Monitor reviews in real-time!
To find more information for your business, get in touch with our team on 01782 524600 or visit our Google business listing to see our positive reviews.
