When a customer leaves a not-so-nice online review of your business, how you deal with it can make or break your business’ overall reputation. And no – you cannot just remove them. Here’s what you need to know about online reviews and some helpful tips to deal with negative ones.
Online reviews are a fact of life, whether you have a physical or online business. We are all guilty of using them at some point as a way to choose a product or a service. But what do you think when you read a bad review about a business – does it stop you from choosing it?
Everyone in business experiences a negative review at some point or another and it is personally crushing when you are just starting out. It may not be merited, or it may be excellent feedback – depending on who wrote it, their motivation, and what you do about it.
Either way, your options around what to do next have the most important impact on your business.
Here’s what you can’t do with online reviews
Legally, Australian Consumer Law has some strict regulations around reviews and testimonials – these are outlined on the ACCC website.
To protect consumers and ensure fair and non-misleading reviews are included for all businesses, there are some rules and regulations you need to be aware of:
- You cannot ‘cherrypick’ reviews. This means you cannot decide what to include or not in your review and testimonial pages – so if you have some bad reviews and some good reviews, you cannot decide to include only the good ones and leave out the bad ones.
- You cannot edit and only include the ‘good parts’ of the review. If there is some negative feedback included with the positive, you must include all parts of the review.
- You cannot make up or include fake reviews.
- You must disclose any reviews or testimonials received from friends, family.
- You must disclose any reviewer who has received a ‘benefit’ of any type, including free or discounted products or services, or, for example, any financial or non-financial benefit such as reciprocal promotion or advertising.
The takeaway message is that businesses need to be very careful that any reviews or testimonials are genuine, and accurately reflect the views of the person giving them.
Top tips for managing online reviews
So, what can you do to ensure that reviews and testimonials work for your business?
You need to follow your business’ reputation online to have a pulse on what consumers are saying about your business, and what may need to be adjusted for future success. Here are the best ways to do this:
1. Monitor your reviews
Know what consumers are saying about your business and ensure you keep on top of the reviews. There are lots of sites that provide reviews and opportunities for customers to write feedback about various businesses such as Google, Trip Advisor, Yelp, Facebook and more. So, you need to be able to track them easily.
You can sign up for free to paid social listening services, such as Mention or Hootsuite, that track your brand and provide a notification each time your business is mentioned on the internet.
2. Try to turn negative reviews into positive ones
Don’t get drawn into a war of words. Most consumers will be more likely to give business to a business owner who responds to a negative review and tries to resolve it, rather than ignores it.
Try to find out what the problem was and offer to fix what you are able to. This will go a long way toward helping negate the effects of a bad review in the eyes of your customers. It’s worth the cost, time and effort.
3. Wait before responding – but not too long!
Take some time out before answering any bad reviews. Take a breath and think about what they are really trying to say, as many times customers just want to be heard. They may just be frustrated at the time, but it does not help if you are responding when you are upset, angry, feel it is unjustified, or are otherwise not in a good frame of mind yourself.
Try drafting a response, then leave it for a while and come back to it again after either speaking with a partner or having a break. It will likely be a very different (and almost always more balanced) response you will send.
However, don’t wait too long to post a response. The longer you wait, the more frustrated your reviewer may become, and the chances of others seeing the unanswered review grows with each passing day.
4. Have a process of asking for testimonials and reviews
You can use an automated email marketing service with an auto-responder set up a few days after purchase to ask about the customer experience. You can also provide a link to a review service so that they can easily click the link and provide feedback with a rating.
Remember, customer feedback – especially negative reviews – is an excellent gauge of your business’ overall customer experience, and helps you identify what you can fix and improve in your business. Try not to take negative reviews personally, but rather, use them as a learning opportunity.
We cannot always keep clients from talking negatively, even when we have done everything right and with a smile. But how we respond is the key to being a successful business owner.
Article updated for 2022.
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