How to Make Your Negative Reviews Positively Impact Your Online Reputation

Many companies and brands fear the prospect of a negative review — but it doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, the benefits you can reap as a result are worth every bit of effort you put in. A proper and effective review management strategy can significantly change the impact it has on your online reputation — from negative to positive.

Here are 6 steps you can follow to make sure your online reputation doesn’t take a hit!

1. Don’t ignore negative reviews

Naturally no one wants a negative review published for the world to see, and potentially scare away prospective customers. However, ignoring a negative online review is the worst thing you can do.

Instead, you should take this as an opportunity to win the customer back. The fact a dissatisfied customer took their time to let you know how they feel, it means they opened up the lines of communication, and it usually means that they are willing to have a discussion.

With a response from you they can see that your customers are important to you, and you have the chance to resolve any misconceptions caused as a result of the review.

2. Reply as soon as possible

The sooner you reply, the more impact you will have. Moreover, by giving a quick and professional response you will be able to limit the amount of time that passing traffic has the chance to see the review without a response. If your response is well-timed, it can even lead to the reviewer editing or deleting their negative review based on your positive response.

3. Offer a considered solution

Most customers leave a negative online review in the hope for a solution. This is your chance to keep them, so take it. Taking a considered and personal approach to your response will make your customers will feel that they are being taken seriously and your response will be met with a positive reaction — this will, in turn, gain you credibility.

If the negative review is unfounded, reject the accusations and present your position in a friendly but firm manner. Admit mistakes calmly and assure your customers that these mistakes are not repeated in the future.

4. Make sure each response is unique

Using a template is a great way to structure your replies and share best practice amongst your teams, however it’s essential you make each response unique. This is not only for the purpose of your customers, who can see of all your responses, but also for search engines that are regularly checking all your published content — replies with a personal touch are also integral to ranking high on search engines.

5. Don’t forget your brand voice

A negative online review shouldn’t mean you forget your brand voice when you write your response. Your brand core values and brand voice should still shine through, after all that’s the main reason customers have chosen your products/services in the first place.

6. Analyse and monitor your negative reviews

Your negative online reviews give you access to a lot of customer data, so you can spot and monitor trends and patterns. In addition to that, the data will enable you to easily highlight issues with specific locations, so you act accordingly, as well as use the insights to predict similar problems in other locations. Analysing customer behaviour will also help you tailor your response to feedback and reviews as well as provide insights for your wider customer profiling activity.