That is to say, customer reviews have that power to either lift up a brand to an iconic one or dunk that brand into the failure river. Once selling things online, you’ll gradually harvest different kind of reviews, from good, bad to even fake reviews which are to harm your reputation.
In this article, let me help you with the right reactions to different kinds of reviews.
What do you have to do with positive customer reviews?
When do you have positive feedback from customers?
When they’re in love with how you and your product or service make their life easier. When your team went an extra miles in helping them. After all, it’s quite rare for a customer to write a positive review for a brand, even when they enjoy a good product or service. If they do, it has to be that customer is really satisfied being with you.
So, when receiving a 5-star review from customers, don’t just go screaming with happiness uncontrollably inside. You need to value positive customer reviews.
How?
At first, write a reply. It makes all senses replying to a negative customer feedback and the same goes to positive ones. Say a sincere “Thank you” with how their nice words for your product/service can be the motivation for your whole team.
Next, spread the nice words, both internally and externally. Good comments from customers are the best motivation for your team to know their work is helpful for customers and they are recognized. Don’t forget to tell your customer that you’ll share their words with your team too. It’s a very human interaction and a trigger for customer to feel happy to write another review next time.
Also, you can share the words to potential as well as current fans by a collection of customer feedbacks and call it “Why people love [your brand]”. The better the exposure of these positive feedbacks is, the greater credibility your brand gains.
Encourage customer to take further action. Since your customer is happy, chance is they will be more likely to do something else if you know how to suggest them. Like, inviting them to follow your social channels or subscribe to stay up-to-date with your future awesomeness, encouraging them to share your product with their friends, etc. Just stay wise and avoid being too sales aggressive.
And how to deal with a bad review?
You can’t please everyone. Bad reviews will always happen. And you must have been reading a thousand of best practices out there regarding dealing with negative customer reviews. There are pieces of advice like: responding quickly, being serious with the problem, being polite even though the customer seems to be mad, promising an improvement, etc.
But in my opinion, when you have a bad review – don’t jump right into replying. Stop for a few minutes to analyze. Does the customer receiving a bad product or service? Or it’s just that the product/service doesn’t fit their need? If it falls to the later, don’t freak out or take the bad words personally. If it’s true that your product/service has problem, move on to the next reaction.
Troubleshoot the problem as fast as you can. If customer is unhappy with the quality of your product then you need to take immediate action to fix it for them. When you fix it well, you’ll become even more reliable in customer’s eye.
If it’s not a problem that can be fixed right away, then tell them that you’re going to fix the bad situation and when you finish, let them know your effort. Don’t ever try to make up an excuse your giving a frustrating customer a reason. They don’t need reason. They need you to diagnose the problem, or they’ll go. The end.
Try even harder to get more positive reviews. The best way to blur out the bad reviews is to earn more positive ones. Let’s say, if you have 100 good reviews then 5 bad reviews won’t be a big deal.
What about a fake review?
You may be surprised, but yes, fake reviews exist. And sadly, there are many of them out there.
I’m not going to mention about the fake reviews which are paid by a brand for certain people to post 5-star review about their products (a.k.a “sponsored reviews”). I’m going to tell you about the fake reviews that other people might use to against your business.
How to spot a fake review? Easy, if they complain about your product, ask them if you can help and ask for the product purchase details. If they are unable to giving such information, then it’s likely that these people are just trying to criticize your business.
Let’s say, in another scenario, the person buy your product but never use it and several days later claim a refund as well as post a bad review on your website or social media. You’ll need to rely on facts and details when using the product to check if this is your real customers or just someone to ruin your reputation.
To deal with this type of fake reviews, you should at first improve the customer experience on your site. If your site and pre-sale service is really good then the impact of a fake bad review will be minimized. Plus, let your customers be your brand police in spotting fake reviews. And lastly, always monitor your customer reviews closely to act promptly to any kind of reviews.
In a nutshell
Receiving reviews is always a chance for you to foster your business. However, you’ll need to know how to take control of all types of reviews out there. Be customers centric when treating all reviews from customers and turn your radar on to spot the fake reviews. Fakers gonna fake and you’ll need to stay wise.
Related Article: True Value of Customer Feedback to Your Business Development
