As a business owner, you will have the odd negative review from time to time. You need to make sure you are dealing with those negative reviews correctly to ensure you are turning any negatives for your business into positives for you and your customers.

Do not ignore

Although this may seem obvious, you will be surprised how many negative reviews are left unanswered. An unanswered negative review will only damage your reputation online, and potential customers who see this when researching your business will be more likely not to purchase.

Always answer your negative reviews quickly; that way, the quicker you get to finding a solution for the customer and solving their problem, therefore bringing them back to being a happy customer. Even replying to positive reviews will help to boost your reputation amongst reviewers and make potential customers even more inclined to stay brand loyal.

Answer in the review area

It may be tempting to move away from google reviews and deal with the complaint privately. However, if you do this, none of your potential customers or Google, who will boost your search engine presence based on reviews, will see your response and know that you did your best to resolve the customer’s issue.

If you answer all reviews on the platform the review came from, then you ensure that the response to a negative review is easily visible to a potential customer. After acknowledging the review online, then you can take it off the platform to resolve the issue for the customer.

Turn the negative into a positive

What’s way more impressive to a potential customer and search engines than just positive reviews is positive reviews and well handled negative reviews. Going the extra mile for a customer who is not happy with their service and doing your best to resolve their problem will usually go a long way in the minds of the potential customers who see your response online.

Helping a customer with a negative review is an effective way of retaining customer loyalty, but also boosting your reputation for potential customers and search engines. Customers will have more faith to purchase from your business as they know that if they have a negative service, your business will do their best to resolve their issue. Search engines will also have proof you deal with negative reviews correctly and therefore may boost your position in search engines.

Do not hide or remove reviews.

Search engines like google do not like it when you try to hide or remove reviews from your review section. It will most likely mean that your SEO ranking will fall and you’ll appear lower in your search engine results.

Of course, if there are reviews that are fake or not relevant to your service, hiding or removing reviews may be your only option. This is unlikely, however, and the majority of your reviews need to be dealt with promptly and with the best service to maintain a robust online reputation.

For help with managing your reviews and reputation, click here.