Whether you like it or not, both positive and negative reviews are a part of every business. It’s the way you handle and act on these reviews that make your business shine. Are you frustrated with a negative review posted online about your business? Don’t worry. Follow these steps to turn your negative review into something positive.
1) Locate Negative Reviews
Using a search engine of your choosing, type “(business name)” and “(business name) reviews” in to the search field. Scan both the first and second pages of the search results to identify and note any negative reviews that can cause problems with potential customers doing their online research.
2) Claim Your Listings
Once you have located the websites and negative reviews associated with your business, you’ll want to log or sign in to the website that has the negative review. Any authoritative review website should have this ability to login and manage a listing. Some websites will instruct you through a verification process via telephone or mail which takes very little time to complete. Other websites simply have you just click the “Claim” button. Either way, you’ll need to claim the listing so you can begin responding to your negative review.
3) Respond Professionally
Whether the review is legitimate or not, you’ll want to acknowledge the review and admit your company was at fault in a short and sincere sentence or two. Try your hardest to resolve the situation. If no comment was provided, kindly ask the reviewer to provide more information on this low rating. After fault admitted and apology given, discuss what you learned and how you and your business will improve its operations. Never argue with the reviewer or provide an excuse on the review website. Your response will viewed by the public and make your business look worse. Remember to be professional.
4) Improve Your Business
Reviews are intended to help businesses like yours identify strengths and weaknesses in their product or service. It’s up to you act on this customer feedback so you can start generating more positive reviews on your listings. Whereas negative reviews can hurt your business, positive reviews will help increase conversion of your visitors to customers thus producing more leads and sales to your business.
5) Generate Positive Reviews
Generating positive reviews can be a difficult process. Usually when a customer is happy with your product or service, they tend to not want to leave a review on your listings. Just simply remind them to do so when your communicating with your customers. Incentives and review generation software are other popular methods of generating positive reviews.
6) Monitor Review Websites
Here is a list of a few of the important review websites that you’ll want to create and monitor your listing.
Google Maps – http://maps.google.com
Yelp – http://www.yelp.com
Better Business Bureau – http://www.bbb.org
Yellow Pages – http://www.yellowpages.com
Angie’s List – http://www.angieslist.com
