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I didn't find a thread for responding to negative reviews online, and thought this could also serve as a platform for others to ask and get advice on, and general discussion. My case: I am an entrepreneur with a small business, and we received our first mixed/negative feedback. Having a great image/reputation is especially important in our business, as it’s a service business where reputation is everything. I wont go into details as I don’t want myself or especially the customer outed, but I need advice. I have read and read online what to do but I am still not confident as the customer is unstable. In their review the customer is both praising our quality, but describing an incident that wildly misrepresents the situation. They make it sound like their product had received major damage and was filthy, when it isn’t. (we have pictures and another professional's opinion who had also inspected the product) It’s just very nitpicky stuff and making mountains out of molehills. They are also borderline insane and have been very abusive (going ballistic and name-calling with stuff I won’t repeat here.) to my business partner on the phone, so I am at loss how to approach this. Currently I have three goals for my response: 1. Putting the “damage” to context and giving the picture it isn’t as bad as they make it out to be. 2. Avoid escalation with professional and apologizing language. 3. Demonstrate to the readers that we have amply compensated the “damage” by mentioning it somehow 4. Demonstrate that we will take steps to avoid this situation in the future I am frustrated, because we honestly haven’t done anything wrong. But we already paid the guy a [sum of money that more than compensates for the damage that was significant but not insane] I have found some contradictory advice on the internet and was wondering if there are any experienced goons here who know how to approach a customer like this. Any advice what to do? Especially, I have read both that I should only apologize for the customer's frustration or bad feelings and not admit fault on our actions, but that seems like a bad idea to me. On the other hand, I have also read that we should admit that a mistake was made even if it isn't really true. I mean yes, technically we could've done one thing to prevent this that I have in my draft response, but we did give the customer pictures about the product before releasing it, and they said it was ok. But I definitely don't want to start an argument over this, I just want this to be done and make us look good. If he wasn't so unstable I would already have this in the can. Apologies if this is a bit incoherent, I'm under a lot of pressure and time-constraints.
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May 17, 2022 11:53
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I own a small business that thrives on positive reputation and word of mouth. I have had public negative reviews on websites, some warranted and some way-off-base. You have already done everything you can for the existing customer (if not, do it!) So now you're selling your business to everybody else who reads the review. Mistakes happen, and unfortunate circumstances happen. Most people understand this. What they want to see is this - you are honest, you genuinely care, and you did everything you can to make it right. My response would look sorry like this - "Thank you for your feedback. The product was indeed damaged but not dirty. We have used your experience to review our quality control policies. As we spoke of, you have been offered a significant discount on our services. If there is anything else I can do to make this better, please contact me at _______." I would probably be a tiny bit more specific to your product or services. Also, making sure your response is 100% cool-headed is more important than posting it immediately.
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May 17, 2022 14:17
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Gin posted:I own a small business that thrives on positive reputation and word of mouth. I have had public negative reviews on websites, some warranted and some way-off-base. Thanks for the advice! We have done everything we can, yeah. Your suggestion reinforced my ideas, much appreciated. I thought about this yesterday, and when I realized that if this was a legitimate complaint I would've had it in the can very quickly. Then I fully realized that my response has to be like that. My current draft looks like this (not verbatim ofc, but the general idea): quote:Thank you for your feedback. In my opinion, if they go ballistic in response to that they will only look like an idiot themselves, and I reckon that the net reputation change from this will be at least zero, might even increase sales, who knows. Or so I've heard about handling negative reviews in a professional and accommodative manner. What surprised me was how emotional this made me, although I'm sure that the fact that they were very unreasonable and abusive was a big, big factor. It really felt like our reputation was about to be ruined, but after sleeping two nights on it, the notion that one public complaint would result in no-one buying from us is ridiculous. I'm sure it is much, much easier the next time.
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May 18, 2022 08:28
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Not a business owner, but its never seemed a good idea to me to begin an apology with "I am sorry about how you felt" and not "I am sorry for what I did." Edit: oh poo poo, didn't realize I was so necroing this thread. Sorry
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Jun 16, 2023 17:55
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Realizing it's a necro'd thread, but what the hell. Many years of managing customer-facing businesses and being responsible for managing customer reviews speaking here. The right way to respond to a review like this is: Don't. Seriously. Let it go. It sucks that crazy people are able to harm your business like this, but engaging them will only ever make things worse. If you're running your business well, the ax grinders will be drowned out by the positive reviews soon enough. It's a useful exercise to hop on yelp or whatever, or tripadvisor for hotels/restaurants, and look up the #1 rated business in its area, and look at the reviews. There are always 1-stars from unhinged people whose hobby is attacking businesses, or who threaten a negative review if they don't get everything free and then followed through on it. Those reviews are always obvious to any half-intelligent person to spot for what they are.s The real fun is when they do that and then want to buy from you again. Nahhhhh no thanks, why don't you go be our competitors' problem. Eric the Mauve fucked around with this message at 13:56 on Jun 17, 2023 |
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Jun 17, 2023 13:51
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