How to handle the negative online reviews

Social media or digital marketing helps in the promotion of your product and services and nowadays in this time of crisis, it is even playing a more crucial role than earlier. As it is beneficial sometimes it can backfire too because of the negative online reviews, but that does not mean that we stop using it. It is important to know how to deal with negative reviews.

There is a certain case in which we can witness that negative reviews does not affect it in losing out the business instead it helps to grow it because more people come to know about it and try to experiment whether the reviews are the fact or not. So, instead of focusing on why people are writing it let us focus on how to tackle it, as in certain cases there are chances that your competitors may be doing it intentionally.

Tips to deal with negative online reviews:

Here are essential tips that help you to overcome the problem of negative online reviews.

1. Make a response immediately

In the online world, people are always active and they need a quick reply. Giving late replies to these people give them a scope to blabber more about you. It is necessary to deal with them as soon as possible as it helps to prevent potential customers from reading it and even if they go through these comments they will realize that what is right and what is wrong. They will get to know both sides of the story.

2. Always behave politely and professionally

Respond to them professionally never give them any personal response it can hamper the situation and people can consider you to be at fault. Always keep your politeness, values, and ethics high while responding. Never try to make up any excuse or blame other people for the problem.

3. Take the issue off-line

After responding to the problem and acknowledging it try to get the matter off-line as there are a number of customers who are reading the issue and there are chances to lose out the potential customers. It is good to get it out of the public view. Offer them your email id or contact details so that the matter can be resolved without having any further damage to your product or the brand.

After the whole issue has been resolved post the agreed outcome on the review website so that the other people also come to know about it. This also helps in building the relationship with the other customers. IT indicates to them that you are concerned about their problems and you take their reviews seriously.

4. Motivate your customers to write a review

Encourage people to write review who uses your products and service. Encouraging does not mean that they should only give feedbacks it is their experience that they have to write let it be good or bad.

This is not about removing negative reviews it is only about removing fake and misleading reviews. Social media is for making relationships that do not lay down the implication to have only the positive one there can be a negative relationship too.

5. Make an appeal to remove the fake or misleading reviews

If you are aware that the reviews are fake or done for the purpose to mislead you must ask to remove them. There are certain examples of misleading reviews:

• Reviews are written by friends or family without disclosing their personal relationship
• Any competitor
• Any person who has not used any of your products or service but has been asked to write the review
• Any employee of your own business

6. Keep a check on your online reputation

Monitoring your online presence is one of the effective ways to be on the reviews consistently. It assists in analyzing your potential customers, what are the issue prevailing to your products and services, and what are the things that should be continued by you to maintain your brand. Manage your online customer’s review by:

• Gain knowledge about how these review and rating sites work
• Get yourself registered with google alerts so that it can track down the mentions of your business
• Try to register yourself with the review sites it keeps you updated whenever someone posts a review especially specialist sites of your concerned industry
• Teach the customers how they can post the reviews and make them aware of your presence on the review sites
• Share the review with your employees

The customers are the ones that make our product or service flourish in the market or die down. Their experience should be the priority of every business person. Customer satisfaction helps with customer retention. Their unbiased views assist in bringing new customers and it is also useful in showcasing the flaws and the benefits. It gives you a list of where you can improve and where you are giving your best. Not in all the cases but in some of the situations it acts as a mirror. Whether the review is positive or negative each of them plays its role and is important.