Responding to POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE REVIEWS By: Dusty Williamson, Mr. Appliance® Brand Manager
W hen you enter a customer’s home to provide service, they are either satisfied or dissatisfied. In the digital world of today, customers often take their experience straight to the web. Listen360 acts as a place where both the satisfied and dissatisfied customer can voice their opinion. While most often a franchisee will respond to a negative review, the positive reviews are forgotten. Let’s take a look at why it’s important to respond to both the positive and negative reviews. Why respond to a good review? If a good customer leaves a glowing five-star review, it can’t get any better than that, right? Actually, it can. Here’s why you should always respond to a positive review: • It’s the Neighborly thing to do. If customer gave you a compliment in real life, you would say thank you. It’s only polite. And with an online review, the compliment is public. So be extra nice! • Everyone is looking. 92% of consumers now read online reviews. The public, including your potential future customers, may read this review. Replying to the review is a chance to speak to these people too. • It affects search rankings. By replying properly, you can improve the SEO ranking of the review, and help the review show up in search results for a business. You might not know how to respond to a positive review. Here are 3 easy steps to help in the process: Step 1: Thank the customer for the positive review and be specific. Ensure the reviewer knows a real person is behind your reply by thanking them for something specific they said. “Thanks for leaving a review, and mentioning our technician Steve. Glad he was able to get your dishwasher running again!" Step 2: Use the business name and keywords in your review response to the good review. Using the business name, category and location in your response will help the positive review appear in search results. “The team here at Mr. Appliance is thrilled to hear such good feedback, and we’re proud to be one of the friendliest [appliance repair services] in [city name]."
Step 3: Invite customer to do something in your response. Ask the customer to return, use another service or spread the word. “If you have a friend or family member that could use our service, please pass us along.” Why respond to a negative review? Unfortunately, you can’t just ignore a bad review until it goes away. In fact, ignoring it can make things worse! Remember, • You're not just replying to just the one reviewer. You're speaking to everyone who reads this review, including potential future customers. • Replying is your opportunity to make things right. If a customer brought a complaint to you in person, you would try to make it right. The same goes for online reviews—despite the impersonal nature of online reviews, it’s not over just yet. You can turn this thing around! • Replying shows other readers you are not shady or neglectful to feedback, and have taken steps to ensure this problem won't happen to the next customer. Here are 4 easy steps to follow when responding to a negative review: Step 1: Apologize and sympathize in your response to the negative review. Acknowledge the customer’s concerns. Even if they are unfounded, show sympathy that they had a bad experience. “I’m sorry to hear about your bad experience.” Step 3: Move the conversation offline. Provide contact info with someone at the business so they can discuss the problem in person. “My name is [name] and I am the [Owner / Manager]. If you’d like to discuss this further, please contact me at [phone number / email].” Step 4: Keep your response simple, short and sweet. Don't go into too much detail or ask any questions. This will prevent saying something that might cause the upset customer to add more negative feedback by replying to the review. Three sentences for your whole reply is a good rule of thumb.
14 TOOLBOX® | EDITION 1 2017
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