(Pixabay: http://goo.gl/Q482A8)
As you can tell by the title, we’ll be talking about negative reviews today. It’s one of those topics that needs to be addressed, and yet, rarely is. Most companies will focus on positive reviews. After all, it’s natural only to listen to the positives. However, you need to pay attention to negative reviews too. They can be harmful to your business, and must be stopped.
How Will Negative Reviews Ruin Your Business?
All it takes is one bad review to put someone off something. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone to purchases something and then read a bad review. Even if there are hundreds of good reviews, it still puts me off. The fact is people want to be careful with their money. They don’t want to end up with a bad product or service. Therefore, they’re cautious whenever they see someone say a business is bad.
Negative reviews don’t just put people off your business. They can also damage your brand image and reputation. This is something that takes years to perfect. And, a couple of bad reviews can bring everything crashing down. You’re back to square one and need to rebuild your brand.
When you look at this, it’s easy to see how bad reviews ruin a business. They can slow things down and make it difficult to get customers and earn money. In addition, they can also be costly. You see, it costs a lot of money to rebuild a damaged brand. Likewise, you have to up your marketing efforts to bring in more customers. Your business expenses sharply increase, all because of someone’s opinion.
How Can You Deal With Negative Reviews?
It’s important that your business learns how to deal with negative reviews. Yes, they can damage you, but only if you leave them alone. The key is using these reviews and turning them into positives. One thing you should do is respond to bad reviews. Talk to the person who left it, so you can try to address the issue. At the very least, this shows good customer service as you are concerned for them. Tracking reviews is easy as there is software like Chatmeter that does it for you. Thanks to Google reviews, you can find local reviews with ease.
Once you’ve spoken to the person that left the review, take their thoughts on board. Allow them to explain the problems they had with your company. Then, you can go away and work on improving any issues. Iron out the creases for a more streamlined business. Who knows, the person may even remove their review after speaking with you. It’s possible that once you resolved their issue, they take the negative review down or edit it.
Negative reviews are a huge problem when you do nothing with them. If you don’t take action, then nothing will improve. It will result in more negative reviews and a greater impact on your business.
It’s important to note that negative reviews are almost impossible to avoid. The best you can do is ensure your company provides top quality products/services and great customer support. Nevertheless, there’s always a chance one bad review can slip through the cracks. So, deal with it, and don’t allow it to ruin your business.