How Should I Handle Negative Reviews and Customer Feedback?

Once a steady stream of online reviews starts rolling in, it feels easy. Your business’s overall rating rises, which leads to more customers, which leads to more reviews. And most of those reviews will be positive. But inevitably, you will wake up one morning and notice a new negative review. When this happens,  what’s a business owner to do? 

Should you respond? How should you respond? There’s a lot of good advice and bad advice you can find on the internet. We’ve cut through all of the noise to give you the most important things you need to know.

Should You Respond to Negative Customer Reviews?

Yes. There’s no question about it – you should. Responding to a negative review sends a message to your customers that they can reach you if there’s ever an issue. Not responding makes it look like there’s nobody there. You’re the restaurant where nobody is there to greet you, so you seat yourself, wait a minute or two, and still, nobody shows up. You’re the Wild West saloon with the cowboys passed out on the card table and a tumbleweed blowing by. 

According to the Harvard Business Review, consumers expect you to respond to negative reviews quickly. 

How Should You Respond to Negative Customer Reviews? 

Here are a few pointers to turn negative reviews into positive impressions of your business:

• Take the high road. Thank them for taking the time to leave the feedback: Let them know you’re open-minded toward feedback and appreciative that they spent some of their valuable time bringing an issue to your attention. 
• Address the issue: Let the customer know you hear their concerns. If your company made a mistake, own it and apologize for it. If there are specific actions you can take to help them, tell them what they are.
• Keep it brief but ask if you can follow up: This isn’t the right venue for a prolonged discussion. Once you’ve taken the high road and addressed the issue, ask if you can follow up with them with a phone call or email. 

Why Is It Important to Respond to Negative Customer Reviews? 

A certain subset of consumers seek out negative online reviews because they want to see how the business owner responds. It’s not a small percentage, either: up to 82% of consumers seek out negative reviews specifically.

If you respond well to a negative review, consumers will form a favorable impression of you and be more likely to do business with you. And if you don’t believe it matters, think of the inverse of the situation. Have you ever been on a review site and you notice a business owner typing in ALL CAPS AND GETTING REALLY DEFENSivE? You make a mental note not to do business with them because you don’t want to deal with them if something goes wrong.

Responding to negative customer reviews in a positive way has a few key benefits:

• Salvage relationship with an upset customer: Sometimes, when you turn a poor customer experience into a good one, you’ve got a customer for life. This is called the “service recovery paradox”, which posits that sometimes a well-handled service failure leaves a customer more satisfied than a satisfactory experience the first time.
• Edited reviews: Sometimes people are having a bad day. A negative review may come from a customer’s state of overall frustration more than anything your business has control over. When you reach out with a thoughtful and compassionate response, it gives customers an opportunity to see things in a new light after a cool-down period.
• It projects an image of stability: When you routinely respond to negative feedback, it shows customers that if they have an issue, they can reach someone and come to some sort of resolution. For some consumers, finding out how you respond to adversity is a deciding factor in their purchasing decision.

Should You Respond to Positive Reviews?

You can, but it’s not as important. A simple “Thanks! Call us again if you need help!” is all that needs to be said. Some consumers may even be turned off by overly long responses to positive reviews, especially if it seems like you’re not doing enough to answer negative reviews.

Review Responses Are an Important Part of Online Marketing

The bottom line is this: if online marketing is an important part of your overall marketing strategy, you need to spend a small amount of time every day responding to online reviews. Demographics that respond to online marketing in general are actively looking for these responses – they’re an important part of their purchasing decision.

Fortunately, it doesn’t take a lot of time, and Summit Reviews makes it especially easy with a clean and clear dashboard highlighting where your newest reviews are coming from and graphing recent review trends. With a single click, you can jump straight to a negative review and write a quick and concise personalized response that puts your company in a positive light.

Learn more about Summit Reviews and how it can streamline your review collection process and help improve your business’s online reputation, or if you ever have questions, reach out to our friendly team!