Dealing with with negative reviews

Probably one of the hardest things for business owners to deal with is bad reviews on social media like Facebook, Yelp or Twitter.

The three important rules to turning this around are: DON'T IGNORE THE REVIEW DON'T DELETE THE REVIEW TAKE A STEP BACK BEFORE RESPONDING

Often the worst thing you can do is either delete the comment or ignore it. This is the digital age and someone somewhere will see the comment and if you delete the comment it's likely to end blowing up in your face.

What you should do is:

APOLOGISE TO THE CUSTOMER

Start of by apologizing to the customer on the same medium they made the complaint asking for more details if necessary along with:

• Your name
• Your position in the company
• A contact email / or request to private message you with more details

DEAL WITH THE ISSUE

It's obvious that you want to resolve the issue amicably, resend the product, offer a refund, offer a replacement etc. Do what's needed to fix it. When it's resolved go back to the review online and post another comment to say it's been fixed. This encourages them to say thanks and this then turns a negative review into a positive review!

WHAT IF THIS FAILS

We live in the real world and we know that this strategy will not always work, sometimes customers just want to vent so what do we do then? Pretty much the same as we have done, be reasonable offer to fix the problem or make it better. You can always detail your offers on social media for the world to see, and sometimes others will come to your aid and tell the person to pull their head in.

LEGAL ISSUES

On the other hand sometimes bad reviews are vexatious false or plain libelous, in these sorts of cases I suggest engaging the services of a lawyer and getting professional advice.

Drew Wentzel

Drew Wentzel is the principal of enflexion with over 25 years of experience in developing web services and software, Drew has helped design and develop usable and functionality rich Internet applications and built online presences for a wide variety of industries including retail, government, hospitality, lifestyle, corporate and technology companies.

Tags: Marketing, Forward Thinking

Related Articles in Forward Thinking

Online Floristry a Crystal Ball look into the future

One the of the things we tend to do a lot of in this industry is take stock of where the online floristry industry is and where we think it will be going.

Read more

How can we improve Flower Store In a Box for special events?

With Valentine’s Day now behind us, the next major event in our calendars Mother’s Day, we'd like to know how Flower Store In a Box can help with these events.

Read more