Firstly you need to deal with the actual online complaint (bad review)
Is the lousy review/complaint accurate / does the customer have a point? What can you offer as a solution? Do not ignore the review; communicate with the client! Communication will need to be both online and in person. Why both? Because once a complaint is online, you are now going to have to prove to all of the spectators (potential clients) that you care about your customer, that the service and experience you offer are correct, and that you have the desire and ability to resolve the issue quickly and professionally.
Secondly, make sure that the problem that caused the complaint is investigated with a clear head, and a workable solution found to prevent it from happening again.
When you read the reviews, consider every single point carefully, take them one at a time;
- Is it accurate/does the customer have a point?
- Did you already know about this issue, but it has been filed on the list of things to deal with eventually?
- Can you resolve the issue?
Some issues can be resolved quickly and cheaply; these are the easy wins! But sometimes the problems are ingrained in either legacy technology, which is not cost-effective to replace (or you don’t know how to start the process) or ingrained in the staff, at which point you will have to look to the management style and culture in the firm and make some difficult and potentially painful changes across the company.
Retrain staff, listen to your team, they may have the answers to the problems you are now facing. Do your internal processes need changing? It is not unusual for companies to seek external assistance at this point, an outside point of view, new ideas and understanding of new/changing technologies can help trigger and smooth the transformation process.
A typical example of a bad review:
“Could never speak to anyone; your phone was always engaged!”
I think we have all suffered from this frustration when dealing with a company at some point, and it is beyond annoying! However, as a company, you have recognised this issue and have since installed an additional phone line, subscribed to VOIP phones diverted to mobiles, etc. So a possible response is “Thank you for your feedback, we apologise that you were not always able to reach us, we have now installed phones lines / VoIP to resolve this issue. We can also be contacted via email [email protected], and we will return calls as soon as possible”.
With a response like this, you have shown you are listening to clients and care enough to fix the problem, reassured potential clients this is no longer an issue, and, at the same time, publicised alternative contact details.
But the review it’s a blatant lie! They are not even a customer!
Do not leave incorrect reviews unchallenged, but keep it professional. Make that clear in your response to the online complaint, “We are unable to locate any customer records relating to you/we are unable to find you on our customer database” Offer up a contact email or number to call. Why? Because they may not be using the same online screen name as they have when dealing with you, they may be using a relative or friend’s account.
Also, importantly, it shows potential clients that this is most likely a fake review and gives them a reason not to include that information in their purchasing decision-making process.
Investigate getting the review removed. Platforms have different processes to getting erroneous reviews taken down, none, in my opinion, are as quick or business-friendly as they should be, this is another reason to make sure you challenge any review that looks fake.
Well, I will use the takedown process to remove all the bad reviews then! Don’t do it, just don’t! Not only will the platforms cotton on very quickly and punish you for it.
But, if you don’t learn from your customers’ complaints, you will, in time, end up with not enough customers to remain in business.
If you would like some advice on how to manage your business’s digital footprint, we’d love to chat with you.
