Latest news with #negativefeedback
Entrepreneur
a day ago
- Business
- Entrepreneur
How to Turn Bad Reviews Into Great News For Your Business
Bad reviews can undermine your brand and hurt your revenue. Learn how to turn things around and transform harmful feedback into a bottom-line boost for your business. Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. No matter how robust your brand's customer service is, you can't avoid negative feedback — noise that can block out all the great things your business offers and does. Social media is rife with videos highlighting incidents where customers feel wronged and the torrent of negative comments that follow. Reviews on Google, Yelp, Facebook, Open Table, TripAdvisor and other platforms are filled with dissatisfied customers, and that can upend a business's good standing. Sometimes, there are missteps, and the reviews and feedback reflect a breakdown in service or product delivery. Other times, people are venting or trolling with no cause. You can't take it personally, but don't ignore what they say. Customers rely on reviews when discovering or purchasing products and services. Bad reviews can turn them away and cause a reputational crisis for your business. Your online business reputation depends on a proactive, strategic approach for identifying, monitoring, managing and responding to negative reviews. You'll seize opportunities to build trust, improve customer service and enhance customer relations. Related: Your Customers Are Talking About You — Here's How to Turn Their Feedback Into Profit Identifying customer issues If a negative or bad comment appears on social media or one of the consumer review platforms, take a breath and figure out what's behind the review. Put yourself in the customer's shoes to see if the review or comment was justified. Go beyond the words and anger to determine where things went wrong. Then respond — genuinely and professionally. Monitoring online reviews You won't know customer dissatisfaction exists without monitoring your online reviews. There are various tools and strategies available to do so. For example, you can use Google Alerts or ReviewTrackers to provide you with real-time alerts when new reviews are posted on platforms like Yelp, Facebook, TripAdvisor and Google. Also, ensure your business is claimed and verified on the major platforms so you can respond to reviews and receive notifications of activities. Optimize your business profiles. You want potential customers to find accurate, useful information when they are looking up reviews about your brand. Make sure photos, location, hours and business description are up to date. Managing online reviews Designate a "review response" team or personnel to respond to reviews. Share these tips with the individual or team responsible for handling reviews: Don't let emotions come into play when crafting responses to negative comments. Thank customers for their feedback and let them know your intention to do better. If the customer is justifiably dissatisfied, apologize and show empathy without overdoing it. Make things right if possible. For example, offer an opportunity to revisit your restaurant with dessert on the house. Send out a replacement product that got lost in the mail at no cost. Offer a discount on a future product. If all goes well, encourage the customer to modify the comment with an updated review so others can see your good-faith efforts. When you acknowledge customer dissatisfaction and do what you can to turn things around, you'll find that these consumers will become your biggest champions and cheerleaders. In some cases, contact reviewers offline to discuss their experience. During the conversation, ask the customers to update their reviews. If they choose not to update the comment, you can respond online that the issue was resolved. Related: How to Better Manage Your Brand's Reputation in the Digital Age Go beyond the negative, highlight the positive In dealing with bad reviews, in addition to responding and turning dissatisfied customers into advocates for your business, beefing up your online reputation with positive comments and reviews is equally critical. Positive reviews influence buying behavior and help win people over, even if there is the occasional bad comment. When asking for a positive review, timing is everything. Encourage reviews at the point of purchase, following an event or fulfilling a service. For example, send a quick text or email saying, "Happy you had a great experience. Would you mind leaving us a quick review?" Make it easy for your customers to leave a comment with a link to the review page. Make getting positive reviews part of your brand strategy Train your staff to ask for reviews in their communication. For example, recently, my colleague had an issue with a product that was delivered to the wrong house. It was the delivery service and not the retailer that made the error. The delivery service would not rectify the situation; however, the retailer was happy to send a replacement product. My colleague received an email with an invoice ($0) listing the products reshipped to her home and a gentle nudge to leave a review about the service and resolution. She was more than happy to do so and spread the word. Respond to positive reviews, too. This shows you care about your customers' feelings and helps build trust with future reviewers. Don't be shy about sharing great reviews as testimonials on your website and social media platforms. Other satisfied customers on social will chime in and reinforce the great experience your brand delivers, further boosting your online reputation. Getting some negative reviews is not all bad. They help you pinpoint areas that need improvement. In addition, they help create a balanced, authentic brand profile. While you want most of your feedback to be positive, having occasional negative comments and responding to them builds trust and credibility.
Forbes
4 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
Negative Feedback? Amazing! How to Turn it into a Success Unlock
Negative feedback I'm working with a prominent tech company to accelerate an innovative culture and mindset. As we did a deep dive on the culture at design firm IDEO, one executive noted something unusual. As the design team in the video is working, a someone shares some negative feedback about the prototype and Tom Kelley gets excited! The excitement is shocking because most of us hate to get negative feedback. I certainly dislike it, and most often respond defensively. When I can remind myself, this simple principle helps me transform criticism into excitement, or at least acceptance: negative feedback is really a signal towards how I can get better. When I'm at my best, I'm able to actually listen! Academic culture is famously constructed from critiquing, challenging, and outright disagreeing with each other. It is so constant, with varying intentions, that when negative feedback comes in, it's easy to bristle. But some of my best insights have come from responding and even integrating others' feedback. When I try to understand their intention to react, realizing that some truth in their resistance doesn't sink the idea, I can make significant improvements. Context matters of course. In the example I was teaching this these tech executives, the IDEO team designed a prototype and because they'd invested only a few days, rather than a few years, it was easier to hear that their 'baby' was ugly. Even that holds a profound lesson. So often we wait until we have perfected something to get feedback—either because we are embarrassed or want people to like it or don't want to look foolish. We don't realize that exposing an idea early can help us get that critical feedback, potentially defining success or saving us years. I'm still working to get better at hearing negative feedback, maybe even getting excited, especially in personal life. If we could find a way to get excited … wow, imagine what we might learn!
