How To Fix Bad Reviews Online
Do more with a fair online review for businesses
Let’s face it, as a business owner, customer service has to be a priority. It’s what keeps your customers returning and revenue up. As business owners, we all strive to offer the best customer service possible. But what about those hidden areas and missed opportunities buried within customer reviews? We all applaud the good reviews, but what about those negative reviews that we overlook or simply just don’t know about? Yelp, Google, Rating Bee, and others provide platforms allowing the general public to review your business based on the level of customer service they may have experienced while interacting with your business. Although in-store customer service is the primary focus for most businesses, many customers experience issues in-store and instead of raising the issue to the customer manager, they voice their opinions online. Many of these reviews go unnoticed and quite frankly, many businesses are blindsided by a poor review that eventually will affect their overall score negatively.
These customer reviews can affect revenue from 6 to 10% per star. Sadly many of the reviewers do not consider or realize the loss in revenue for a snap impulse review that oftentimes does not truly reflect a fair rating. Many of the issues that a customer may experience can be solved with just basic communication directly to the customer service manager in-store. Some of these issues can be as simple as the checkout line was too slow, or the salesperson did not say thanks! But unfortunately, for such a simple infraction, a business can get a one-star rating with no recourse for their business, other than an apology with the hopes that the reviewer updates the low star review. Sadly the review reflects permanently on your review profile, wonderfully prominent on the top of your reviews! How can this be so?
Steps to solve that negative review
First, don’t panic! Communication is everything and you can solve this. What’s most important is to communicate with the customer graciously and offer a coupon, or a free cup of coffee to try to resolve the issue. Demonstrate to the general public and other reviewers that you take customer service seriously, your reply does more than solve the issue of the reviewer, it also clearly shows your commitment to their satisfaction. For your other customers, this is a positive outcome as they develop trust and loyalty to your business as you look out for their needs.
Prove that you mean it
Beyond just offering a cup of coffee or a coupon, also make sure that the public clearly sees that you’re making a serious effort to resolve the issue and that you’re using a resolution engine to track the progress of your negative review beyond just a simple reply. Rating Bee offers you the opportunity to do just that. You can generate a resolution ID for your client or customer and post that ID into your reply. This allows the reviewer as well as the general public to see the progress of that resolution and respond. Once resolved, it is publicly displayed and benefits your business in the long run. In addition, you’ll be able to improve your score not just on Yelp and Google, but also on Rating Bee, by improving your ratings as well as your resolutions.
Brag about your commitment to customer service
Rating Bee gives you the opportunity to demonstrate to your customers that you are committed to their satisfaction. Place the Rating Bee banner on the bottom of your page to go directly to your business profile on the Rating Bee website. This shows customers that you take reviews seriously and you proactively solve issues as they pop up. This public declaration alone could be the difference in a customer returning to your business. This service is free to all verified businesses.
Answer good reviews, not just the bad ones
Good reviews are a good thing, use it to your advantage by responding and thanking the reviewer for their kind words. You may also want to consider offering customers a coupon for returning to Rating Bee, Yelp and Google to review your service and their level of satisfaction. This ensures that if in the event you do receive a bad review, your average score will always be well-maintained with a higher average of good reviews and resolutions on Rating Bee, Yelp and Google.
Rating Bee automatically sends to you any updates, new reviews and resolutions so you’re always up-to-date and monitoring the pulse of your business.
Better reviews are waiting, get plugged into your customers, sign up now.
