Anyone who has been in business for a while has certainly had a bad review at some point or another. The review may have been warranted or may have been unfair. What really doesn’t matter is if the review is true, but how you handle it.
Here are two excellent articles to check out for two different ways to handle negative reviews:
The Startling Secret to Getting Positive Reviews for Your Business
Three Tips to Handle Online Negative Publicity
Both articles are easy and fast reading. Here are my tips to add to the topic:
- Don’t respond immediately to a review when you are upset or angry. This will do more harm than good.
- Think about if the review has some truth. Do you need to change what you are doing to be better?
- Decide if you have to respond at all. This is a hard one, sometimes to rise graciously above a bad review is the best path and in other cases to address it head-on is better. Chat with some other business owners you trust to help you decide based on your situation and the review.
Actively start working on a regular basis to get good reviews and post them on your website. You want to make sure that there is a balance of reviews about your business online. Posting good reviews on your website is a great way to start.
I never recommend creating fake reviews. This can get you in more trouble than you need. If you are having trouble getting reviews, try a third party service who will contact your customers for you and even help them write the review about your firm.
If you do get a negative review, address, deal with it, and put it behind you. It is important to realize that you will not be able to please or service every person to their own satisfaction over the years you are in business. Do the best you can, and keep a mind-set of excellence in all you do.