We discussed how to deal with negative online content in a previous post. Now let’s see how to craft a response to potentially damaging content. These are our tips:

1.    Listen to your customers: Reading bad reviews will help you understand what your customers expect from your business. It can help you grow and make improvements.

2.    Respond in a timely fashion: Even if you will most likely feel angry after reading a bad review, don’t rush into a heated response. Your response needs to be reasonably quick, but it mainly needs to sound calm and courteous.

3.    Be nice: as a business owner, you should show that you care about what’s being said about it. Make sure your response is useful, readable and reasonable; and avoid sounding defensive (show your response draft to someone else if in doubt!). A good response could drive an unhappy customer back to your business.

4.    Don’t get personal: Remember that the feedback you have received is about an experience, not about you as a person. Also, you are responding on behalf of a business, not your self, so your response should reflect this.

5.    Think about your audience: Even though your response will be addressed to the reviewer, many more people are likely to read it. Keep it in mind when you are writing your response, emphasise your company’s commitment to customer satisfaction.

6.    Keep it brief: The best way to ensure that your response is read is to avoid long wordy paragraphs trying to give your side of the story. Showing that you own the issue and describing how it’s been resolved will earn you the trust of potential customers.

7.    Be thankful: Sometimes a bad review will lead you to make changes to your business, introduce some new features or policies that will improve your company’s value. It is important that you acknowledge this and thank the reviewer for their comment. It will show that you take your customer’s opinion very seriously.

Of course this is easier said than done. Always remember that you need to be consistent with the responses you give to your customers. All responses need to follow the same guidelines and be written in the same tone, so that customers with the same problem are treated in the same way. Doing it otherwise could undermine your credibility.

If you need advice or assistance in dealing with the online content about your business or on social media sites, speak to our team! Contact us on 0845 075 0152 or team@angelsmedia.co.uk