We understand just how important the reputation of your business is to you. Both in regards to helping to grow your business and also for your own personal pride, the reputation of your business can prove to be one of your most powerful assets or one of your biggest liabilities depending on how positive it is.
With potential customers placing more importance on reviews than ever before, especially if they are new to your products and services, this is an area of your business that must not be overlooked.
Building Your Online Profile
Your ‘Google My Business’ profile (which helps to generate your listing on Google Maps) is arguably the most important online profile you can establish for your business. This is in no small part to the fact that when someone takes the time to leave a review, it will be displayed in Google’s search results. This can be extremely positive but what should you do if someone decides to leave you a poor review?
Don’t Overreact!
The first and most important bit of advice we give is to not overreact! Whilst the receipt of a bad review can seem to be quite personal, the facts are that so long as you don’t receive too many, a bad review is not the end of the world. In fact, it is widely acknowledged that many customers are believed to be mistrustful of businesses that have flawless 5* ratings – as it can be difficult to believe that anyone is really that good! As such, a small number of poor reviews can actually add an air of realism to your profile.
Please do not resort to drastic steps such as deleting your account, changing all of your details or setting up brand new profiles. Establishing an effective online presence can be tricky enough once, never mind twice!
Always Respond To The Review
Always take the time to respond to a negative review but just importantly, always remember to ‘take the high road’ wherever possible. However tempting it may be to give people a piece of your mind, this is very unlikely to be constructive and is very likely to damage your reputation far more than the review will. Just as the review can be viewed by everyone, so can your response.
It’s really important to answer in a professional way. If you feel that an apology is necessary, then, by all means, include one in your response. Try and provide some type of context to the original review as a benefit for future readers and wherever possible, encourage whoever left the review to continue the conversation privately (via phone, e-mail, DM etc) in an effort to resolve the situation rather than continuing the conversation in public.
Use The Review To Help You Improve
Whilst it is not certain that all negative reviews will be warranted, it is possible that they have some merit. Can you use the negative comments as a way to improve your service? If similar comments keep appearing from different people, perhaps a particular area of your business could do with refining. It’s important to keep a level of perspective and whilst we fully understand that no-one will ever enjoy receiving a poor review, don’t worry too much if one appears on your profile.
Need Some More Help
Would like to find out more about dealing with bad reviews? Give the Footprint Digital team a call on Tel. No. 01883 372488 today.
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