Negative processing: how to respond to bad product reviews
Folk wisdom says that it is impossible to please everyone, and it is not worth striving for this. Otherwise, you will simply lose your corporate identity and zest. However, turning a blind eye to negative comments is no less a bad idea. Especially if we are talking about a company, product or service.
The number of negative assessments and even constructive criticism, which often only hides the negative, directly affects the reputation. And reputation, in turn, is reflected in the number of sales and revenues of the company. A natural question arises, how to respond to a negative review and not lose a client. Read more about this in our article
About the value of customer reviews
The value of customer reviews is much higher than the owners of companies usually think about it. Reviews on the Internet form customer loyalty, inform other users about the product natively, help identify shortcomings, improve the product and bring the company an increase in sales.
The absolute majority of consumers (about 90%) evaluate the quality of goods and services based on the opinions of friends and reviews from the Internet. Potential customers are more likely to believe numerous reviews than brand information about themselves, so do not underestimate the impact of social networks on business.
The rating on the feedback pages also depends on whether a person wants to buy a product or service. After analyzing the reviews, the client draws his own conclusions and may refuse to buy anything at all.
According to statistics from Brightlocal and eMarketer, almost 60% of consumers claim that negative reviews forced them to refuse to buy the product. At the same time, 74% of consumers tend to trust the brand if
What are the reviews
The ability to leave a review on the official website increases brand credibility. This is due to the principle of social proof — this is a psychological phenomenon in which a person is guided by the opinion of other people, believing that they understand the situation better. This phenomenon was described in detail by Robert Cialdini in the book "Psychology of Influence". At the same time, it is not always clear which comment damages the business, and which one can be called acceptable. To do this, it is important to understand the types of reviews.
1. Positive feedback
Positive reviews help to convince a potential customer of the high quality of services and goods. It is they who encourage a person to make a purchase. But if you think that you can ask friends and relatives to write good reviews about your product and things will go uphill – you are mistaken. Consumers are very sensitive to falsity, check reviews on a variety of sites, and if we are talking about a large purchase, they even consult on forums. Therefore, our task is to get as much real positive feedback as possible.
2. Mixed review
A mixed review should be understood as criticism or advice. The good news is that mixed reviews indicate problems, the elimination of which will lead to an improvement in the quality of work. Working with mixed reviews will only increase customer confidence and have a positive impact on sales. At the same time, ignoring the client's comments even at the stage of mixed reviews can still damage the reputation of the company.
3. Negative feedback
Negative feedback is a problem that needs to be dealt with first. You can't leave negative reviews without a reaction. It is also important to remember about situations when negative reviews are massive, and to be able to work with it. To begin with, try to answer the negative, if it is justified, and the problem really exists - solve it.
In cases where the client has written a negative without justification, you should contact him and request, for example, a document confirming this situation (contact information, receipts, photos). If he does not get in touch and does not respond to the offer of help, you can contact the resource support (this option is not available on all resources), where the comment is posted, and ask to delete this review as unconstructive.
Mechanics of processing reviews: why you need to respond to them
It is important to respond to reviews, since a potential client sees that the company cares about the consumer's opinion. The involvement of the company in the life of customers is demonstrated by employees who moderate comments and help find a way out of the problem.
Reviews are written by people and read by people too, so the emotional moment will always be present. On the one hand, a disappointed consumer who is trying to take out his anger on you, to achieve justice and compensation. On the other hand, a business owner (if the company is small) or a moderator who should accept these feelings, but not get involved in them.
1. Before you start responding to a comment, it's important to let yourself calm down. With experience, this process will take less and less time.
2. Next, you need to contact the client directly. People value an individual attitude, so a personal conversation is the basis of success. It is important to greet the client by name or first name and patronymic. If the name is unknown, you can first introduce yourself and ask to do it in response.
3. Be sure to thank the person for his feedback. Accepting someone else's negative emotions makes them visible. This is how you tell the client that you appreciate his message, even if it is negative.
4. Show empathy. No one is pleased to find themselves in a situation where our expectations from a collision with a service or product are not justified. Therefore, it is important to initially side with the client and only then analyze the work of employees.
5. The most important thing in the matter of working with a comment is the ability to take responsibility. If the client's claim is justified,
6. It is perfectly normal to translate a complex dialogue into private messages, and not write them in the comments. A comment is just the place where you can address the client directly, thank him for his feedback, recognize his complex emotions and offer to transfer the discussion to a private area.
7. A negative experience does not mean the loss of a client, so it is important to do everything to normalize the relationship. This way, you will increase loyalty to your company or product. A discount on the next order, a promo code, some kind of gift or a full-fledged replacement of the order, if there was an obvious miscalculation, will help resolve the conflict. You can also ask the client to change or supplement their feedback as the conflict is resolved.
Examples: how to respond to reviews
Yes, bad reviews can be hurtful, cruel and unreasonable towards you. It is quite obvious that you want to get angry in response, but you should not do this in any case. Only the voice of reason can dictate the answer to the client. It is best to compose scripts of responses to such messages in advance, they will help moderators process the review.
However, only some phrases can be formulaic. For example, the beginning of a dialogue. This will allow you to find time to read the client's claim and develop possible ways to resolve the conflict. You should not forget about the personalized attitude. Start your answer like this:
Example #1
"Good afternoon, (client's name). Thank you for your feedback and reporting this issue. It is a pity that our company left more negative emotions than positive ones. Please leave your contact details so that we can apologize in person and offer a solution to the problem."
Example #2
"Good afternoon, (client's name). We are very sorry that you are faced with a low-quality product. We will write to you in private messages to offer a solution to the problem."
Remember, each opinion is unique, so you also need to respond to comments individually. Starting a formal correspondence, it is important to build a personal contact with a person. And timely response will help smooth out the situation before a person tells about it on their social networks.
Common mistakes
When the official response of the company is only "we apologize for the inconvenience" or "thank you for choosing us", you automatically refuse to return the client.
1. Make sure that you are responding to comments from the official account. A banal icon with the company logo will help you understand who is writing to whom.
2. Even if you understand that the problem was not the fault of the company, you should not make excuses, explain yourself and sort things out in the comments. Any emotional inclusion other than empathy makes it worse for your reputation. Respect the person even if he does not respect you.
3. If you decide to work with comments, offer a solution to the problem. Even if the problem was solved "on your own", offer the customer a discount or bonus on the next purchase. Encourage people for writing to you. Perhaps in the future their question or claim will turn into a positive feedback.
4. Don't delete comments, even if you can do it. In general, deleting comments is an ethically difficult issue. From the marketing side, this is an extreme measure in working with reviews, since a serious reason is needed for deletion.
5.When it comes to slander and paid reviews, you can involve lawyers, but it is important to do this only if you have thoroughly checked the facts and are convinced that you are right, because a trial can cause even more damage to the company.
Thus, we come to the conclusion that any comments are important and have meaning. And a properly built system of working with them will help to turn the negative into a high-quality customer service, increase customer confidence and increase sales.
Maxim Osipov
Account Manager Reputation HouseNow you know how to work with negative reviews. We wish you to encounter them as little as possible. But if a situation suddenly arises when you cannot cope with them on your own - contact us at Reputation House. We will help
