August 23, 2013

Everyone has an opinion, and regrettably as a small business owner some of those opinions could cause your business a great deal of trouble. Managing your online reputation is a big must-do item on your daily checklist. Fail to do it, and you might find people deserting you in droves. Bad reviews are a reality of online life. They are really easy to post, and will often influence large segments of the target audience in your favor or not. The trick is getting much more of the favorable to outweigh the unavoidable negative.

best-practice-for-dealing-bad-reviews

How to manage a negative review

Here are three steps to proactively cope with the sporadic negative review.

  1. Customer service ought to be a top priority – Many times the reason why companies are in the position of managing a especially nasty online review is they failed to attend to business as soon as the problem first came up. Very often the customer tried to reach out, but had no response, and felt as though they had no choice but to air their problems online at a review site. A great deal of this can be avoided by taking a proactive approach with respect to monitoring your onsite and social media channels, so you’ll know when a problem comes up.
  2. Be professional at all times – The very last thing you want to do is get in to an online shouting match with a client. This will not work out well for you, ever! Even if you’re right, you’re completely wrong to engage in this fashion, as it will scale this problem to heights you wouldn’t think possible. Strive to remain professional, generous, and endeavor to keep that customer, or at a minimum make sure you don’t lose more of them! Because this type of customer usually represents about 1% of your customer base, it’s simply not worth the trouble it causes.
  3. Foster positive reviews – A proven way you can actively help your online reputation is encouraging positive reviews of your products or services form your satisfied customers. Most are glad to help, and if these appear regularly, the likelyhood that the occasional negative review will stand much of a chance of remaining high in the search results are slim. View it as not only as managing your online reputation, but as a way of promoting your business, for free!

Handling negative reviews isn’t rocket science, but it does call for persistence and professionalism. These days with the speed of communication online, you haven’t any other choice but to utilise an online PR. Contact us today!

{"email":"Email address invalid","url":"Website address invalid","required":"Required field missing"}

The 7 Important Things Your Online Presence Needs But Most Business Owners Forget


Get this Checklist for FREE

Click the button below to claim your free copy of the checklist.