PinMeTo - How to manage and respond to online reviews

Whether you check your business’s online reviews daily or haven’t even bothered to claim your Google listing, one thing is for sure - potential customers are reading what others are saying about your business online. The truth is, 57 percent of the consumers will only use a business if it has four or more stars, which means that positive reviews are a powerful way to drive more customers to your business.

Your company wakes up with a negative review - and the possibility of a permanently lost customer. Marketing wisdom tells us that it’s more costly to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one happy. The following stats tells the story of why you want to do all you can to get the customer to edit a bad review:

• GatherUp
• YouGov

In the example above, we can see that the owner’s response follows the general pattern of turning negative reviews into good ones:

√ Reach - The customer reaches out with their negative experience on review platforms such as Google or TripAdvisor.

√ Remedy - Some type of fix occurs, either from intervention on the part of the brand, a second positive experience outweighing an initial negative one, or maybe the consumer self-correcting their own misunderstanding.

√ Repair - Because of the fix, the customer who was unhappy is now happy again. Hopefully, they’ll be ready to do business with the brand again, and the brand’s image will be fixed by an edited review that shows better satisfaction.

In the above case, we can’t see how the owner’s answer turned out. But the owner was very professional online, which, if all goes well, should help them trust them again. And by reacting to this review, the owner shows other potential customers that they are willing to address and solve problems.

To Sum Up

How to respond to negative reviews:

• √ Apologize
• √ Offer an explanation
• √ Provide an immediate resolution
• √ Don’t follow a script - be personal in your response

And remember!