How to Reply to Negative Reviews

Countless studies and surveys have shown that a negative review can drive away potential customers more than almost any other factor, but how a business responds to consumers who’ve had negative experiences can be just as impactful. Knowing how to reply to negative reviews can do a lot to make up for the damage they can do to your business.

Some easy-to-follow guidelines and tips can help encourage repeat business, even after a customer has had a bad experience, and can show new customers that you’re responsive to your customer’s needs.

Responding to Negative Reviews

A single negative review has been shown to have a much larger impact on business than multiple positive reviews- one recent study concluded that it can take as many as 12 positive reviews to make up for the damage that one negative review can do to business.

However, how a business responds to bad reviews can be a key factor in reducing and sometimes even reversing their effect- both ensuring repeat business and attracting new customers by showing a sincere commitment to listening to customers and improving based on customer feedback. Dealing with fake reviews comes with some basic guidelines any business can use.

Here are the most important concepts and approaches a business needs to learn when it comes to online engagement with bad reviews and making an unhappy customer feel heard.

Personal and Direct Engagement

The last thing an upset customer who has just left a bad online review wants to see is a boilerplate, copy-and-paste, or robotic-seeming response after having a negative experience. Using correct salutations (Mr/Ms/etc) and avoiding generic “Dear customer” or “Dear guest” intros will create a good first impression, and further personalizing your response based on their described experience will make them feel heard by an actual person.

Thank Your Customer and Apologize

In addition to a personalized tone and approach, showing gratitude to your customer- whether dealing with a positive review or negative review- is essential in making customers feel important to your business. “Thank you for your feedback, very sorry to hear about your negative experience,” this is a good example of how to open your response by addressing their emotional needs first before addressing the specific issue.

Sympathize and Acknowledge Responsibility

Showing that you can relate to and understand a customer’s frustration while simultaneously taking responsibility for their issue is crucial to any response to negative feedback. Not only does it make your response feel more personal and human, but it establishes a business’s ability to receive criticism and react appropriately and proactively to it.

Respond Quickly

To maximize its effectiveness, a response to either a positive or negative feedback and reviews needs to be done quickly. If a customer is frustrated enough to leave a review, waiting a week for a response increases the likelihood that they’ll simply want to move on and not give you repeat business. Responding quickly but sincerely and concisely makes the customer feel like they have a real relationship- and an important one- with your business, as they should. Apparently, giving quick feedback is also one of the best ways to respond to positive reviews.

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