It happened – you got a bad customer review. Now what do you do?
First of all, don’t panic. It happens to even the best and most profitable companies in the world. However, some companies think deleting negative reviews will help, but that’s not always the best practice.
Here are a few steps to turn a negative review into a positive one:
- Join in on the conversation and engage positively and productively with that reviewer
- Find a resolution to the problem and tell the customer what actions you will take as a result of their comment
- A customer may even update their previous negative review once the issue has been resolved
- Keep monitoring online reviews and respond to both positive and negative ones
Here’s a brief example of how to best respond to a negative review.
Note: Your response does not need to be as long as the response below. But, make sure before you respond, you apologize, address the issue, find a resolution and what you’ll be doing moving forward, and thank them for their business and bringing this to your attention.
EXAMPLE
Customer X: “I’m never going back to this coffee shop again! It took 20 minutes to even get my order in and then when I got to the front of the line the employee taking my order screwed it up!! Biggest waste of time and money EVER!!!”
You: “Hi Customer X – I’m terribly sorry you had such a bad experience at Company ABC. I assure you we always want to provide the best service and customer experience as we possibly can and it looks like we’ve failed you in that department. It looks like in the past few months we’ve consistently been swamped in the morning rush and were ill-prepared for it. I set aside some time with the employees to address these issues and have resolved to overstaff to meet the morning coffee demands. We’ve also looked into a better ticketing and POS system as a way to assure our customers will get their correct order. And, I’m happy to let you know that we’ve set up a system for quality assurance and fixed some minor errors to our original system. We’re happy you brought some of these issues to light and that we’re able to fix them moving forward. We hope you’ll stop into Company ABC again and give us another shot. If you do, please bring in this review and I’ll get you a free drink on me. Thanks Customer X and I hope we’ll see you again soon!
Customer X: “Wow. Thank you for your kind response. I was ready to rule Company ABC out, but I’m glad to hear that a business is actually doing something to fix a consistent problem. You definitely will have my business again.”
At Gravity Payments, we always strive to provide the best support we possibly can. That’s why we have a Support Team that is live, local, and patient – ready and waiting to address any issues you may have.
