Combating Negative Reviews Online - 6 Quick Tips
There's nothing more disheartening when you work hard to build up your brand and your online presence and then you discover that you're receiving negative reviews. Those reviews can substantially impact on your sales and your revenues and it can be very hard to deal with the fall out. Don't worry help is at hand, here are 6 tips to help you improve your reviews and to deal with the impact of bad feedback. Always respond to bad reviews. Whatever the feedback, however mean or spiteful you feel it is, you need to respond. You must respond in a positive way, offer a means of resolving the issue, apologise and if you get a response update the review too. If the review makes steam pour out of your ears and you just want to scream and shout, calm down before you respond. You can't control the reactions of others, but you can control your reaction to them.Work harder to get positive reviews. This has a couple of benefits, firstly new reviews tend to displace older reviews, so if your customers start posting about how happy they are the negative reviews will slide down the list. Though it's worth noting that some review providers (like Yell for example) will allow customers to screen by ratings, so a determined customer will always be able to pick out the bad reviews. So don't stop responding to bad reviews. Tip: If you want positive reviews ask your customers to review you, give them web addresses and links to do so and thank them for doing so. Tip: Never write positive reviews of your own business yourself, you will get caught and the fallout from this kind of situation will damage your business. If you have issues, talk about them. From time to time you'll have an issue that affects a large group of customers, for example your delivery agent may have failed to deliver multiple orders on time or one of your suppliers may have issued a recall for a product you sell. Don't ignore these issues, talk about them before they become an issue - post on your blog/website and in other consumer sites about what has happened, and what you have done to resolve the issue.
Don't panic. It's OK to get bad reviews; no-one can be all things to all customers. Just ensure that your values and attitude are reflected in your responses and in your positive reviews.
Make it easier for unhappy customers to let you know. The best case scenario is that customers let you know they are unhappy before they go online and tell the world, encourage feedback from your customers and more importantly - thank them for that feedback and act on it wherever possible.
Don't let it go. If you believe a review is truly malicious and not at all representative of your business, contact the site it is on and ask them to take it down. Provide evidence when you do so, and try not to take no for an answer.Nick is the President of http://www.authoring4u.com a specialist consultancy based in Shenzhen China, which helps companies from around the world save time and money in the areas of; technical documentation, Internet presence and marketing and Press Relations. Article Source: [http://EzineArticles.com/?Combating-Negative-Reviews-Online---6-Quick-Tips&id...] Combating Negative Reviews Online - 6 Quick Tips
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