Listening and responding to customer reviews allows you to connect, demonstrate fantastic customer service, and resolve issues. Responding to your customers’ online reviews and ratings, check out this guide for the definitive tutorial for great customer service.
For customers, online reviews are critical. We would check reviews before booking that expensive holiday home in southern France. Reviews tell what other people, your customers, think of your product. If you respond to reviews, you show your (potential) customers that you care about their opinion. And that’s something your customers will appreciate. Furthermore, responding to reviews will make your business stand out from other companies, as many do not try to respond to their reviews.
Responding Reviews: Why?
If you write a response to a review, you’ll not only write to the person who wrote the review. Consequently, your response will be out there for all potential customers. Handling reviews with grace, gratitude, and a little bit of it can greatly impact how people perceive your brand.
Reacting to reviews appears to be a wise thing to do. That does not mean you should respond to every single review. So, in my opinion, you should react to negative reviews. Responding to negative online with this guide reviews will show potential customers how you handle problems and solve solutions for dissatisfied customers.
I would also react to positive reviews, especially if the response is elaborate and detailed. Indeed, responding to positive reviews will allow you to promote your brand and show your passion for your company.
Eventually, how do you respond to those negative reviews? What should you do, and which pitfalls should you avoid? In this guide, I’ll be sharing tips with the definitive tutorial on how you can be responding to those negative reviews online!
Road-Map
Negative comments and reviews will always come up at one point in time. It’s a good thing to prepare yourself for it. You could have some standard replies ready. Be careful never to use the same answer more than once. Always adopt a reply to the specifics the situation requires. Also, having some nicely drafted sentences ready can help you to formulate the response in the heat of the moment.
Responding Reviews Guide: Stay Calm
It’s never easy to get a negative review. In some cases, it can feel unfair. Perhaps the tone of the review is harsh, personal, or condescending. Your first reaction will most likely be an emotional one. Perhaps you’ll get angry or very frustrated. In such a case, taking a moment before writing your response is wise.
Offline Part
Someone had a bad experience with your business, and you want to fix it? An important tip from this guide on how to responding to these reviews, try contacting them outside of the review channel. Consequently, ask them to contact your sales department or invite them to your restaurant. Did people not get their dessert? Invite them over to your restaurant. Can’t people get in touch with your support department? So, please help them to make a connection.
Understand the Issue
A negative response means someone has had a negative experience with your business. Maybe they didn’t like the food you served in your restaurant. Of course, this could be due to their lack of taste, but such a response will not satisfy your potential audience. In most cases, start with apologizing for their negative experience, even if it’s not (entirely) your fault. You are sorry that they had a negative experience. You are sorry the food did not taste good.
If something went wrong because of a mistake on your site, tell people who own up to it and apologize. If someone did not get their dessert and is pissed off about that, investigate the situation’s specifics. Did you forget about their dessert? Admit your mistake, apologize, and try to fix the problem.
By responding to your product reviews as directed in this guide, invite them to have dessert some other time. Everyone makes mistakes, and people forgive if you show your human side. In that case, admit your mistakes, apologize, and try to find a solution.
Ask For a Third-Person
You’re never an objective author of responses to reviews. You’re involved; what might sound reasonable to you might sound crazy aggressive to someone else. So, if you’re not sure about your response, letting someone else read it first (someone objective) can be a good idea might be a good idea when responding to reviews.
Make it Simple
Don’t write responses that are too lengthy. Responding to the short and sweet reviews as stated in this guide. Nobody wants to read through a reply of thirteen paragraphs. Even if someone insults you in a review, you should never get personal. Try to remain professional and polite at all times.
Never get trapped in lengthy discussions. Reply once, maybe twice if necessary, but stop replying after that. Nobody wants to read a complete discussion between dissatisfied customers and businesses. Or maybe some people do like to read such a thing, but it does not reflect well on your business.
Final Words About Responding Reviews Guide
If you have had some negative responses, you’ll probably want to bury them underneath a big pile of positive ones. Maybe you’ll encounter customers that have positive experiences. By all means, invite them to leave a review. Research shows that a lot of people are willing to do that!
If you can solve the problem with a dissatisfied customer, you can also ask if they can edit or remove their review. You should only do that if the air between the customer and your business is clear. We hope this helpful definitive tutorial on responding to online comment reviews has helped.
