{"id":6215,"date":"2010-03-16T09:20:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-16T13:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/?p=6215"},"modified":"2010-03-16T09:28:22","modified_gmt":"2010-03-16T13:28:22","slug":"responding-to-negative-reviews-the-real-audience-is-your-prospects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/2010\/03\/16\/responding-to-negative-reviews-the-real-audience-is-your-prospects\/","title":{"rendered":"Responding to Negative Reviews – Your Prospects are the Real Audience"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ted Paff is the President of Customer Lobby<\/a>, an on-line solution to help local service businesses to get, manage and publish reviews. Ted called me when he read my principles of a review program<\/a> post to introduce himself and his company. We had a far ranging conversation that covered everything from the economy to parents but always came back to conversation about reviews and their role in the online world.<\/p>\n

I was particularly struck by his company’s approach<\/a> to finding the lemonade in the lemon of the negative review titled:\u00a0Negative Reviews Increase Sale<\/strong> and the idea that the response is as much targeted at future customers as the reviewer. I asked him to write a guest blog detailing how he and why he would suggest responding to the negative review :<\/p>\n

****<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

So you got a negative review about your business.\u00a0 Although it stings right now, what you do next has a bigger impact on the ultimate outcome of this situation than the negative review itself.\u00a0 Your actions will determine if this event enhances your reputation or becomes an embarrassing smudge.<\/p>\n

Should you Respond and What to Say<\/strong><\/p>\n

As much as you might want to, you can\u2019t profitably respond to all negative reviews.\u00a0 Never respond to a review unless you can do Step 1 and Step 2 below (Step 3 is optional).<\/p>\n

Step 1: \u00a0Own the issue.<\/p>\n

Your first objective in a response is to communicate that: you are paying attention to the issue; the issue is important to you; and that you are sorry the reviewer had a problem.\u00a0 Your prospects will be reading your reply with rapt attention.\u00a0 Write this for them. Tell them that when someone has a problem, your business will hear them.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t matter if the reviewer lied or only told half of the story \u2013 own whatever issue they wrote about.<\/p>\n

Step 2:\u00a0 Describe how future customers will not have this issue.<\/p>\n

A critical part of any response is to tell your prospects that something has changed and this issue will not happen to them.\u00a0 This is a golden opportunity to market your business.\u00a0 For example, writing that \u2018we have put a new process in place\u2026\u2019 tells your prospects that your company is good and is getting better.<\/p>\n

Step 3: \u00a0Offer to fix the issue<\/p>\n

Your business will spend a lot of time and money on sales and marketing. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Although you can\u2019t always fix every issue (sometimes you don\u2019t want to), your offer to fix a reviewer\u2019s problem is a great marketing investment.\u00a0 \u00a0In the response, suggest that they contact you directly so you can try to resolve the issue.<\/p>\n

Guidelines for your Response<\/strong><\/p>\n

Write it with your prospects in mind.\u00a0 Before writing your response, think about who your audience is.\u00a0 Although your response should be addressing the reviewer, the vast majority of the readers of your response are likely to be your prospects. Writing your response with the majority of your readers (a.k.a. your sales prospects) in mind will help you set the right tone.\u00a0 For example, write about your company\u2019s commitment to customer satisfaction. \u00a0Your response should not try to change the reviewer\u2019s mind or dispute the facts as set out in the review.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t be defensive.\u00a0 \u00a0One suggestion we often give to our clients is to send a draft of your response to someone that doesn\u2019t work at your company.\u00a0 Ask them to delete anything that sounds defensive.<\/p>\n

Take your time.\u00a0 A negative review most likely made you angry.\u00a0 Resist the temptation to reply quickly because, unless you have superhuman emotional control, the reply is likely to sound angry.<\/p>\n

Keep it brief. \u00a0Resist the temptation to \u201cset the record straight.\u201d\u00a0 The surest way to ensure that your response never gets read is to give your side of the story.<\/p>\n

Writing a short, non-defensive reply to a review that owns the issue, describes how the issue has been resolved (maybe includes an offer to fix the issue) will earn you the trust of your future customers.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

Another incredible resource in responding to negative reviews is a piece written last year by Miriam Ellis: Edit, Remove and Respond To Reviews \u2013 Tools For Conflict Resolution<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To get a sense of how far wrong things can go when an SMB decides to respond to negative reviews see Inc’s You’ve Been Yelped<\/a> detailing how bookshop owner Diane Goodman, was \u201cbooked for battery and remanded to San Francisco General Hospital for a mental health evaluation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ted Paff is the President of Customer Lobby, an on-line solution to help local service businesses to get, manage and publish reviews. Ted called me when he read my principles of a review program post to introduce himself and his company. We had a far ranging conversation that covered everything from the economy to parents …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-reviews"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6215","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6215"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6247,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6215\/revisions\/6247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}