Despite what you may think, negative reviews can have a silver lining. Assuming a negative review about your business has some validity, you should consider the feedback constructive instead of cruel. After all, it’s a chance to make your business even better. Here are just a few things you can learn from negative online reviews:
1. You can see what needs improvement. Sure, you are going to get false negative reviews once in a while (see our post on “How to Handle a Fake Negative Review of Your Business”). For the purposes of this advice, forget those. Look at the genuine ones and try to find patterns. Are the posts including complaints about the payment process? Maybe, they all mention a flaw in your service. If lots of people are criticizing one part of your business, then it probably needs attention.
Take these reviews as your cue to make necessary changes. Now, you don’t have to react to every criticism, but give each one some careful thought and analyze whether this legitimately needs fixing and will be profitable to you. Once you make changes, inform the critics and thank them for their help.
2. You can capitalize on the publicity. To some extent, the saying about even bad publicity being good is true. After all, it does get your name out there. Of course, you don’t want the negative reviews to outweigh the positive ones. But when negative reviews are mixed in among glowing ones, they give a certain authenticity to the commentary.
3. The negative reviews are a chance for real dialogue. With positive reviews, you usually just humbly write a thank you note that encourages the relationship to continue (and can also consider other ways to leverage those reviews). On the other hand, a serious critique gives you pause and the opportunity to respectfully reply and try to address the concerns of your customer.
Since you can share your letter publicly online, consider this your opportunity to show the world how caring and responsive your business can be. Just don’t make some of the common mistakes others make, such as getting into a war of words.
What’s the moral of this story? Embrace the negative and turn it into a positive. So, how do you usually handle negative reviews? What’s your strategy? Let us know in the comments below.