A bad review may mean bad business for your company. The business listings available online are great to gain exposure but they also mean that you’re under the scrutiny of your customers. As the Local Consumer Review Survey (2012) reported that 72% of consumers surveyed said that they trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. So, it’s pretty clear that keeping your business’s reputation at a high is essential.
Especially if you’re a small business owner or a partner for a big company that wants to represent them faithfully in your own location, you’ll try to keep your customers as happy as can be by offering great services and products. Still, a bad review happens to every company out there: there’s no way around it because people are entitled to their opinion and you can’t be everyone’s cup of tea.
So if you want to take care of your reputation and your partner online marketing strategy, learn the do’s and don’ts of approaching a bad review!
The Typical Approaches to a Bad Review
- Ignoring It. Oftentimes partners or small business owners are busy and won’t log back into their business listings accounts. On other occasions, there’s a conscious decision to have bad reviews go unnoticed! Either way, a bad review is left there for others to witness. Yes, everybody thinks differently about your business but by ignoring a bad review, you’re giving the impression that you don’t care!
- Deleting It. In other situations, the account manager will take a more proactive approach: deleting the bad comment from existence. Still, problems don’t just go away! People could start to notice this behavior and call you out on it on which could hurt your business.
- Paying for Good Reviews. In order to soften the blow of a bad review, partners or small business owners may pay several writers so they can put together a good review and post it on their business listings. This is not only a sneaky way to get your rate up, it’s a practice banned from many of these platforms. Trying to trick users with 50 straight “A” reviews will make others suspicious of your credibility!
How These Approaches are Detrimental to Your Partner Marketing Strategy
At the end, each of these practices gives off the impression that you don’t care enough about your customers to let them provide feedback to your company and voice their opinions. Whether you ignore them, delete their message, or pay to get your ratings up, this makes readers uncomfortable and unsure of who you are and how you work!
How to Turn a Bad Review Around for Your Partner Marketing Strategy
- Answer Back. By answering back to bad reviews, you’re acknowledging your customers complaints and concerns, which makes you seem as a more approachable, trustworthy, responsible and caring company. Who knows? Maybe they’re upset because of misconceptions that can be fixed on the spot. Plus, other readers will see your answer and realize that you try to mend your mistakes.
- Make it Right. If you want to take it a step further and really set things right with your customers and your company’s image, offer a way to correct the misunderstanding. Yes, answering back is a great start but by offering a discount on their next purchase or the chance for you to provide the service again, your success rate with clients will continue to increase.
How it Will Benefit Your Partner Online Marketing
As said above, this can benefit you because you gain people’s trust: you’re forming a relationship with them by repairing a previously bad experience. That’s a surefire way to get recurring customers because they’ll know that you’re dependable.
Plus, the previously unsatisfied customer may return and provide a new review that highlights the lengths to which you went to make sure they got what they paid for!
Conclusion
The Internet can be a tricky domain: customers have a voice that everybody can hear which may be beneficial or detrimental to your company. The thing is not letting the bad reviews get to you and finding a way to turn them around.
It’s true that it may be tempting to recur to the typical approaches to bad reviews because you’re a small business owner or partner who’s trying to make the most out of his/her online marketing strategy. Still, consider that your other options will put you in a bad light with new customers!
Be as civil as possible and don’t let stubborn clients steer you away from fulfilling your company’s purpose online. At the end, the customer is always right so you should face them with a smile. Just remember to always provide the best service/product possible so there aren’t any reasons for a bad review in the first place!
Published: October 24, 2013
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