Bad Google reviews: what you can do?

Google reviews are very important for any business, and bad ones can have a severe impact.

Google reviews are very important to your company or business because they carry a lot of weight with many customers. Although Google reviews are mostly positive sentiments from your previous customers there are days when you will be faced with a bad review from a potentially dissatisfied customer. Such a review may be very demoralizing and may even affect your reputation if not carefully dealt with. So what would you do if you find yourself in a situation where someone has left a bad review for you or your business? Here are some steps that will guide you on how to take control of the situation.

8 Steps to take control

Stay calm

The most important thing in such a situation is to stay calm. A bad review may make you so angry that you want to lash out at the reviewer especially if the complaint is not entirely your fault. Take time to calm down. Do not respond to a bad review with high emotions because you are likely to use rude or aggressive approach towards the client or complainant. You should keep in mind that bad reviews get more attention from future customers because want to see your approach towards a dissatisfied client.

Check out the authenticity of the complainant

Competitors or even simply mischievous people may write a negative review about your company simply to hurt your business’s reputation. It is, therefore, a good idea to check whether the complainant is actually a real customer whom you served. Verify details of the complainant’s transaction or the service that was provided to the customer and the attending personnel. If the reviewer is a fake and does not exist within your accounts, move quickly to flag the review as false and ask Google to remove it. Meanwhile, comment on the review and note that you cannot find the reviewer within the business account history. However, you should also apologize to the reviewer for any inconveniences that may have been caused by the situation. What this does is that it shows any potential customers that you are willing to own up to any issues that may arise and that you are willing to respond quickly.

Contact the reviewer personally

In a case where the complainant is an actual client that your business served, then the next appropriate step is to contact them as soon as possible to own up to the issue that the client has raised and then assure them that the issue will be dealt with as soon as possible. This can be done through their email or maybe their account messaging section. You should ask them to give you full details about the issue they faced. Communicate with the personnel involved

Once you have heard the client’s side of the story, it is best you talk to the personnel who served the client and understand the issue fully from both sides. By doing this you will have a clear idea of the cause of the problem and can then resolve it.

Take action to rectify the issue or compensate the client

The next logical step is to take measures to solve the issue raised by both parties. This may involve replacing a defective part sold to the client, sending personnel to the client to help them with setting up or understanding the purchased object, compensating the client by giving them subsidies or discounts in future, training your personnel on how to handle customers in future or even laying off personnel who misbehaved. Whatever step you take, ensure it tries to solve the issue raised.

Communicate back to the dissatisfied client

You should then communicate back to the client and inform them of the steps you have taken to resolve their complaint. There are chances that this client may change their view and change, delete or add a positive review that would further enhance your business’s reputation.

Comment on the public review

Once the disgruntled client is satisfied, you should then move back to the public review and comment on it. Your comment should own up to the issue raised by the review, express your apology for the situation and the inconveniences it has caused, explain the steps you have taken to resolve the issue and assure the client that you have taken measures to ensure the situation never happens again. This shows future potential customers that your business responds quickly and positively to their client’s complaints.

Seek as many positive reviews from your satisfied customers as possible

Although positive reviews do not swallow up the negative reviews, having as many positive reviews as possible will help to dilute the effect of bad reviews. You should, therefore, request your satisfied customers to leave you a review. A business that has many positive reviews appears reputable and attractive to potential new clients.

Learn from the review and stay on top of the situation

There is nothing as bad as having two negative reviews from different clients complaining about the same issue. It shows that the business has not learned from their mistakes and are repeating them, therefore, are likely to offer you poor services as well. It is therefore important that you learn from a bad review and try as much as possible to never repeat the mistake.

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