Why People Leave
Bad Reviews
Okay, this may seem
obvious—people leave bad reviews because they’re unhappy with your
business, right? But let’s take a step back and talk about this a
little bit more, because by understanding why people leave bad reviews, you
can also understand how to prevent them.
Most people want small
businesses in their community to thrive; they don’t want to leave bad
reviews! Sure, there are always those outliers who like to complain
about seemingly everything (and you’ve undoubtedly dealt with many of
those people as a business owner!), but generally speaking, people
leave bad reviews on Google because they feel it’s their only recourse.
You can avoid negative
reviews by:
- Being responsive. A large portion of
negative reviews on Google Business Profiles have to do with
communication (or, rather, a lack thereof). Get back to your
clients and customers quickly, especially when they seem unhappy
or have a pressing question or concern. When you’re not able to
respond in a timely manner because you’re away from the office, be
sure to set up an autoresponder on your email, record a voicemail
message that lets people know when to expect a response, or have
someone else handle communications for you.
- Give customers the
opportunity to resolve any issues immediately after their service
or purchase. You
should make it a habit to send a follow-up email asking your
customers or clients to relay their concerns to you ASAP so you
can make things right. If you’re able to take care of disappointed
customers immediately, they won’t feel as compelled to leave a
negative review.
- Be
courteous.
It’s simple psychology—if someone is nice to us, it’s a lot harder
to write a blistering review on their Google Business Profile. Be
courteous and kind, even when you’re not feeling the same love
from your customer.
How to Respond
to a Negative Google Review
Even if you’re doing
your best to go above and beyond, it’s inevitable that you’ll get a
negative review at some point. It’s the price of doing business—in
fact, when researching businesses, people are often skeptical of those
with only glowing reviews. (Hey, maybe that bad review isn’t such a bad
thing after all?)
You may want to bury
your head in the proverbial sand and avoid dealing with your negative
review, but this is the worst thing you can do—well, second only to
responding in a blind rage. You can swoop in and redeem yourself in the
eyes of potential customers by offering a professional response.
Here’s how you do it:
- Make
sure you are registered with Google as a business owner. If you haven’t claimed
your Google Business Profile, you’ll need to do that.
- Log
in. Log into your Google
Business Profile account.
- Select
Respond and Review.
It’s as easy as that!
What to Say When
Responding to Negative Google Reviews
So how do you respond
when someone has less-than-glowing things to say about your business?
Here’s the strategy we tell our clients to use:
Respond Quickly…
…but not immediately.
You want to take a breath first and process what the review says and
carefully consider your response. Reading that bad review for the first
time will give you an adrenaline rush, and you want to wait until your
heart isn’t racing and your blood pressure drops a bit before you hit
Respond.
Acknowledge the
Complaint
If you’ve read some
parenting books over the years, you’re probably familiar with the
advice to acknowledge what someone is saying, even if you don’t
necessarily agree with it. Do the same in your response to bad Google
reviews. For example: “I understand you felt our crew was
unprofessional,” “Thank you for your feedback about our scheduling
process,” “I wanted to take a moment to acknowledge your concerns about
how our restaurant is handling pandemic protocols.”
Apologize
Being the bigger person
isn’t always easy, and it especially doesn’t feel good if you feel like
you were in the right. But
you should always apologize. It might kill your soul a
little bit to apologize to that difficult client who changed his mind
about what he wanted and blamed you for it or who was rude to your
staff, but think of it in terms of optics—it makes you look gracious to
future clients if you can offer a sincere (or sincere-sounding)
apology.
Suggest to Take the
Discussion Offline
Do what you can to get
any back-and-forth off of your Google Business Profile and into an
email or phone call. Most of the time, an acknowledgement and apology
is enough to diffuse a situation, but some people really want to
make sure they win an argument, and they never hesitate to beat a dead
horse until it’s even deader. (What a terrible analogy, right?) In
addition, when you take the discussion offline, your unhappy customer
is now dealing with you directly, not just venting their complaint into
the internet ether; they’re more likely to take a reasoned approach
when speaking one-on-one with another human being.
Take Action to Resolve
the Issue
Don’t ask the customer
what you can do to make things right, because they may have something
in mind that’s not feasible or fair, like a full refund, free products
or services, etc. Instead, offer a potential resolution that you’re
prepared to give, like a partial refund or redoing work that the client
was unhappy with. If you leave it up to your customer to come up with a
resolution and their ideal resolution is not one you can fulfill, it
may escalate the situation further.
How to Remove
Bad Google Reviews
The only bad reviews
you should worry about getting rid of are reviews that aren’t from
actual customers. If you believe a series of bad reviews are part of a
negative SEO campaign, if a review was mistakenly left on your Google
Business Profile (perhaps for a business with a similar name), or if
the review isn’t relevant to your goods or services, you can take steps
to have it removed.
- Flag
it. The first step to
getting rid of a bad review is to flag it for Google to review.
- Contact
Google support.
If Google doesn’t take action after you flag the review you want
to have removed, contact support. Make sure you have a valid
reason for asking the review to be removed; simply disagreeing
with negative feedback about your business isn’t sufficient reason
for a review to be reviewed. The review should be irrelevant or
invalid, not simply unfavorable.
- Drown
it in good reviews.
And no, this doesn’t mean hiring a company to leave fake reviews
for you. (These are always totally obvious and never worth the
investment—they only make you look bad.) It also doesn’t mean
having every friend and family member you know with a Google
account leave positive reviews within a time span of a few days.
Instead, send emails to previous (happy) customers asking them for
reviews, and start making it a habit to ask for reviews whenever
you do business with someone.
Assess What You
Can Learn from Negative Feedback
When you face adversity
in life, it’s important to reframe. This is also true of bad Google
reviews! Instead of viewing these reviews as a negative, view them as
important feedback to help you improve your business.
While a single bad
experience may be just that—an aberration in an otherwise stellar track
record of superior customer service—if you see patterns in complaints,
it’s time to pay attention to what your customers are telling you and
make improvements. Are you always late for appointments? Does your crew
leave messes behind in clients’ homes? Is your receptionist rude to
customers? It can be humbling to hear negative feedback, but the best
business owners use these reviews as a tool and make sure future
customers won’t have the same complaints.
Taking action based on
bad reviews on your Google Business Profile gives you something else to
share in your responses, too. One of the best responses you can leave
to a negative review is, “Based on your feedback, we’ve made the
following changes to how we do business.” This alerts the unhappy
customer to the fact that you’ve taken their complaint seriously, and
it also shows potential customers that they don’t have to worry about
having the same issue when using your business.
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