Responding To Online Reviews

What do you do with all the new reviews?

So your reviews have started streaming in, What now? Make the most of your newest marketing asset. Customer feedback is the ultimate pulse check your business. Acknowledging every customer that took the time to share their review is your chance. 5 star ratings or otherwise, your reviewer took the time to share their experience, acknowledge it. This is a perfect time to flex those customer service muscles and build your reputation one review at a time.

3 tips for responding to positive reviews

Responding to customer reviews makes sense, right? It's staring at a blank screen that gets most of us. Perhaps knowing a big chunk of your potential customers will read your responses as they are deciding to do business with you adds pressure. The good news? It's actually easier than you think. Use these tips to guide how you respond to Google reviews and beyond.

1. Thank them

This may seem like a no-brainer but thanking a customer for choosing to business with you is review management 101. You have the power to make your customer feel appreciated. Don't waste the opportunity.

2. Be yourself

Chances are your customer had the opportunity to engage with you one way, or another. Whether that was on the phone, in person or via email. Even if they didn't, you have an incredible opportunity to build and strengthen your relationship. As consumers, we have a natural tendency to choose businesses that we know over ones we don't. Nail the relationship and you're on your way to building a customer base for life.

3. Use their name

We all love being treated as individuals, not numbers. With a review, you'll almost always have you have your customer's name, use it! Your reviews allow your 'MVP' customers to show all potential customers that you deliver on your promises.

Here is an example of our our positive review response, you are welcome to use it as guide or template.

3 tips to crush your negative review response

As a business owner with a digital footprint sooner or later you are bound to encounter negative reviews. How you respond to negative reviews will speak volumes your customer service. What you do with the feedback will have a flow-on effect on growing your business and retaining existing customers. When you approach a negative review with an open mind you're create an opportunity to correct the customer experience.

Approach reviews with an mind and you'll create new opportunities

You actually have the power to improve overall customer satisfaction and inspire more people to do business with you. The process for responding to a negative review allows you to to demonstrate that you genuinely care about your customer experiences. You prove you are willing to take the appropriate steps to remedy a negative experience. If you find yourself in a situation where someone has posted a negative review, tackle it head-on with these tips.

1. Acknowledge the experience

Regardless of how bad the review is, always acknowledge it. Your customer probably just wants to let off some steam. Often being heard has the power to take a lot of the sting out the experience and gets you on the way to correcting course. Be sure to let your customer know that the experience is not a typical one you soon be on your way to making things right.

2. Keep your message short

Providing a clear message on how the issue can be resolved will make the situation easier for all sides. Avoiding long-winded explanations and counter perspectives will help as well. Give your customer an easy way to speak to someone who can course-correct is equally important. Provide an email address and phone number so they can get in touch in their preferred way.

3. Take the conversation offline

Encourage the conversation to take place offline. Doing so allows your customers to provide candid insights into their experience. Most businesses would kill for a real-time pulse check so embrace it and you'll surprise yourself how quickly you can turn it around. This the approach we use for responding to negative reviews on Google, but is equally at home on any review platform.

It's all about reputation management

Refining how you manage reviews is ultimately one piece of the puzzle. It allows you to to demonstrate that you genuinely care about your customers and the feedback on offer. You prove you are willing to take the appropriate steps to remedy a negative experience. Let's not forget the huge upside of leveraging all your hard work to increase sales. You don't need a script or template to confidently reply to a negative review, all its takes a little practice and to have a solid review strategy.

What does it look like in real life? Here is an example of our our negative review response, you are welcome to use it as guide or template.

Get in touch if you want to refine your review strategy further.