Step by Step Guide on How to Deal with Negative Reviews on Glassdoor

If you have been running a company with at least 5 employees, you might already be familiar with Glassdoor. In case you haven’t heard of it yet, you should check it out. You might find information affecting your reputation as a company. The website lets employees leave anonymous reviews on their employers. On one hand, this can be beneficial to the company — if all reviews are positive — and on the other detrimental — if there are at least a couple of negative reviews. With glowing reviews your company profile might convince top talent to join you, but a lackluster score might instantly turn off potential candidates. So how do you handle bad reviews to turn it to your benefit?

1. Take your time. Don’t reply right away, because an immediate reaction might be fueled with a defensive stance. Take a day to reflect on the feedback and don’t let anger take over in your reply. This is an opportunity to right a wrong.
2. Understand the source of frustration. Some negative reviews might be exaggerated and details might be added to make a point. The key thing is to identify the source of the complaint and address it. If you are unsure, you can always schedule one on one session with your team to understand the employees’ point of view.
3. Write your response. The key thing in your response is to address the issue and not the person. Write a personalized response and show that you are willing to work on the issue at hand. This will project an open mindset from your brand and show to potential applicants that you are working on improving your workplace.
4. Post it! Respond directly to negative reviews. It’s always great if it comes from a senior level representative, ideally the CEO. This shows that an open work culture is shared across the whole company.
5. Don’t stay passive. Writing great responses to negative reviews is helpful in curbing the bad impact on your reputation, but you should not stop there. Take a pro-active approach and encourage your employees to leave reviews — and completely honest ones. Use this as a resource to receive feedback on how you can improve your company’s workplace. Furthermore, you can conduct exit interviews. Talking about potential issues before an employee leaves can sway off a negative review on Glassdoor.

In the end, there is no perfect workplace and incidents can occur anytime. In order to succeed in maintaining a good online reputation, you have to engage more with your employees and strive for improvement.