In an increasingly online, social and mobile world, negative reviews/ comments posted by some unscrupulous competitor or a disgruntled past employee can ruin your online reputation.
Negative reviews will affect consumer behavior and influence the buying decisions of many prospective customers. This will lead to shrinkage of your customer-base and consequent loss of revenue.
If you consider a negative review is false or malicious or violates the site rules, you can immediately contact the site and ask for the review to be removed. However, quite often the site may not agree with your interpretation, or may be casual in their approach.
Sometimes, it is preferable to respond privately to negative reviews as a first step. You can send a short and courteous message to the reviewer. In extreme cases, it may not be wrong to apologize to a disgruntled client if his/her complaint is genuine.
Sometimes, it is preferable to respond privately to negative reviews as a first step. You can send a short and courteous message to the reviewer. In extreme cases, it may not be wrong to apologize to a disgruntled client if his/her complaint is genuine.
In certain other cases, you can seek further details from the disgruntled customer and make an offer to resolve their grievances
In some extraordinary cases, you might offer some kind of compensation – either refund of money or replacement of defective goods. Your objective should be to ensure that the customer is satisfied and continues to patronize your business.
Even after solving the issue by privately communicating with the customer, it may still be worthwhile to post a public message outlining the nature of complaint and the steps you took to amicably solve the issue.
Such open sincerity will actually boost your online reputation as people will appreciate that you are responsive to feedback.
It is crucial that you respond to a customer complaint as quickly and thoughtfully as possible and in no case ignore them. A quick response will considerably minimize any potential damage and send out a message that you seriously care for customer loyalty
If, however, you come across negative comments that are false and malicious, you can straightaway ask for its removal or ensure that such comments are pushed to the third or fourth page of search results. In extreme cases, you can take legal action against people posting slanderous messages.