3 Steps to Managing Negative Online Customer Reviews

Dealing with the time-consuming and oftentimes challenging task of addressing negative online customer reviews is becoming a more necessary small business chore. If you own a small business, it is almost certain that at some point one of your customers will have an unsatisfactory experience.

Prior to the rise of business review websites, a small customer service misstep would have a minimal effect on your business’s reputation. However, these days each negative customer rant that finds its way online has the potential to seriously harm your business. Your ability to effectively manage this criticism, and use it to improve your company, can make the difference between business longevity and business failure.

Don't Ignore the Situation

Ignoring even one negative review can harm your business. Not every person is going to take the time to read a negative review and carefully consider whether you or the customer is in the right. More often than not, that one negative review can create enough doubt or uncertainty to send your potential customers into the arms of your competitors.

This is why it is important to have a set game plan of how to deal with online complaints. You will find that it’s very difficult to simply get a negative review removed. Most review sites do not allow reviews to be removed unless you can prove that the reviewer has violated that site’s guidelines.

This is also a situation where lawsuit threats are of no help. You cannot sue the review site for hosting a customer’s negative review, since the Federal Communications Decency Act prevents lawsuits against sites for publishing third-party content.

The only thing you can do is subpoena the site to try to obtain the IP address of the offending reviewer -- that is, if you wish to bring a personal suit against them.

The smarter (and in many ways more effective) option is to learn how to effectively reply to negative reviews, especially as you're sure to get another one down the road. Here are 3 consecutive steps to follow when confronted with damaging customer criticism online:

1. Offer an Apology and a Solution

The first step is to try to identify the customer and fully understand their grievance in order to better prepare your response. With that information in hand, reply to the review, politely acknowledging the mistake and offering them a solution, whether it be a full refund, expedited shipping, a replacement product, etc.

It’s important to include unique details of the issue and not make your reply sound like a canned response. This helps frame the situation as an out-of-the-ordinary occurrence that you've taking a personal interest in resolving -- not simply "business as usual."

Make sure that your customer support lines are active and operational. Do not tell someone to call a number or email support when there is no one on the receiving end to handle their issue. This will only result in a more damaging follow-up customer review.

2. Invite the Customer to Amend Their Review

If you are able to resolve your customer’s issue, the next step is to encourage them to return to the site and remove their negative review, or at least amend it with a follow-up message describing your help in resolving the problem.

This may require some incentives on your part, but clearing up a negative review is definitely worth any immediate costs. If the customer refuses to do so or is unable to remove their review, then follow up with your own summation of the events.

Explain that as a business owner these things are unfortunate but do happen and that the customer received a full refund or whatever action you took to address the issue.

This public display of customer service will go a long way in overcoming any damage done by the initial review.

3. Encourage Positive Reviews from Satisfied Customers

Encourage your satisfied customers to leave a positive review at the site hosting the bad one. This may also take some incentives. This does not mean paying people to leave positive reviews! There are many subtler ways to encourage your customers to leave honest reviews to crowd out the bad ones.

It’s also important to note that you shouldn’t have to wait for a bad review to start motivating happy customers to leave reviews; in fact, being proactive about this can prevent one negative review from having a drastic effect on your business.

Since it’s more difficult to get customers to post positive reviews rather than negative ones, regardless of exceptional service, you should try steering them towards sites that will offer you the most benefits. Start by identifying who your customers tend to be  (tourists, locals, foodies, professionals, homemakers, etc.) Then choose a review site that best fits your niche and invite customers to leave feedback there.

Keep in mind that directing your customers to a review site with brand recognition has the added benefit of allowing you to advertise your rating. You may have already seen this in businesses that proudly display stickers reading “People love us on Yelp,” “Zagat Rated,” or “BBB Accredited.”

Some major sites that you can start with include the following:

Yelp.com (restaurants/local businesses)

TripAdvisor.com (restaurants/hotels/entertainment)

Angieslist.com (service/health providers)

Kudzu.com (service/health providers)

Yahoo Local (local businesses)

YellowPages.com (local businesses)

BBB.org (local businesses)

The idea here is to control as much of the online conversation about your business as possible. By directing customers to a business-friendly review site -- one that allows owners to reply to complaints or even offers some kind of reputation-management program -- you’ll further mitigate the damage one bad review can cause.

And never leave fake positive reviews of your own business. There are many ways you can get caught doing this, which will be much more damaging to your business’s reputation than a few negative reviews.

Understand that negative reviews are not the end of the world. If you deal with the situation correctly, you can come away with a positive boost to your business.

Customers do not expect a business to be perfect. What they do expect is a company to take responsibility for its occasional shortcomings and show that it cares about its customers and is willing to do whatever it takes to make them happy.