How to Handle A Negative Business Review Like a Boss
I know you’ve heard that old saying you could turn a frown upside down. That is exactly what you do when you handle a negative review the correct way. Not only do you earn the respect of the person who was unhappy with you and rode the negative review, but you also are in the respect and trust of everyone who reads that review in the future.
Make sure to stay to the end of this video. Not only. Are you gonna learn how to handle a negative review like a boss? But we’re also gonna offer you an opportunity to jump on a strategy call to see how we can help you grow your business.
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Hi, I’m Kirsten Graham . Six figure business coaching.
Did you know that reviews play a role in S e O. It’s true when Google is pulling up search results. One of the factors that considers is online reviews. So if you want your business to show up on the first page, of Google. Getting reviews is really important. And let’s face, it most of us look at and read reviews before we buy a product or service, and this is gonna be true for your customers as well. Now, I know a lot of small business owners are afraid to set themselves up to get reviews out of fear of getting a negative review, and that can really be detrimental to your business. And I’m gonna explain why reviews could help you build like and trust with potential customers.
Even if the review is negative, you have an opportunity to show off your awesomeness. You just have to handle that review correctly. In my opinion, there are two types of reviews.
The first is constructive criticism, and the second is just plain mean. The goal of both is to show that you’re listening and that you care and that you’re stepping in to address the issue is the negative review falls under constructive criticism. Your goal is to win them over, to step in and make it right , and when that person back win them over.
Now, if the comment is just me name calling nasty, there is no positive solution. Your goal is to just neutralize it again, show that you’re responding, but just to neutralize the situation, because this one’s really mean and nasty and name calling. There’s often no way to win them over. But you do want to step in, show you’re addressing the issue and try to have that person not come back again at you. If you can’t make it a win win with a nasty comment , that’s great. But if you could just neutralize it, I consider that a huge win.
So where do you start when dealing with a negative comment?
The first step is Do not reply right away. I know you read that comment and you’re furious. You’re hurt. You’re upset, you’re scared. It’s gonna affect your business. And your fingers are flying or your thumbs are flying and you just want to reply. You want to defend yourself. You just you can’t believe it, so you want to jump in there and do something about it. My advice to you is do not react right away .
The second step is to process it. I know after you’ve gotten all the emotions out, you need to really look at that comment and process it. Is it constructive? Criticism is in a really nasty comment. What does that mean to you and your business? Is there a way for you to improve your systems and your process? Is, is there a way for this negative review ? To help you grow is a business and a business owner.
So the third step is to write a reply. In fact, you may write two or three replies, and the reason for that is there’s often ways that you could handle a situation in multiple ways. You come at it from different directions. So what I would do is write your reply in several different ways, addressing their issues, their concerns, trying to figure out how to make it a win win, not accusing them of being wrong, but trying to find a way to showcase that you and your business care and that you’re doing everything you can to make the situation right for them.
The fourth step is to ask some friends, preferably other business owners, to read what you’ve written. Now this is gonna help in several ways.
First of all, again, you’re emotional about it, and you want to react. But having other business owners who are friends looking over is going to give you different perspectives and they’re gonna be able to help you really detail that reply. Help you decide which is the best way to go. Maybe change your wording. They’re gonna help you make that reply the best it can be. It’s also gonna help you because you’re gonna get a lot of emotional support. They’re gonna understand where you’re coming from. You know, they’re gonna know that you’re great at what you do and that you love your clients and that you don’t want negative reviews. You want all of your customers to be happy.
So having them step up and give you that support can also make the process easier and the blow a little less difficult to deal with. So the this step is going to be the post your reply and often get the question. Well, how quickly should I do this? Sooners better, But don’t don’t rush it. If it takes you two or three days to get that reply right, it’s fine. But as soon as you feel comfortable with your reply, go ahead and post it. And again, this is going to show the person who posted the negative review that you are listening. You do care and you’re addressing it. But it’s also gonna show that to future potential customers. People who go and read reviews before they contact you or your business. They’re going to see that someone was unhappy and that you stepped in to deal with it.
The sixth step is to ask for reviews, reach out to all of your happy customers and asked them to review. You remember, One of the best ways to offset a negative review is with lots and lots of positive reviews. We have an email that our clients used to send out to their customers on a regular basis. Toe ask for reviews, and this is a great time to do that because you’re thinking about reviews. That negative review has brought your score down , so it’s a great time to get some five stars to bring that score back up. So in the comments below, let us know, Have you ever had to deal with a negative comment and how did you do that ? Or do you have a process to continuously get reviews for your business now? What I want to talk about is one of our clients. Sometimes I feel like hearing what someone else has done and how things played out for them is very helpful.
So one of her clients owns a bookkeeping business, and she had a client who he just always got everything to her late. And he was always just stressed and unhappy because she couldn’t turn things around really quickly for him because he turned in things late. He didn’t always provide what she needed, and he was also very verbally abusive to her. She’d been doing it’s bookkeeping for a couple of years.
So after a couple of conversations, she decided to let him go, and we helped her kind of draft that email to him, and she basically just said, You know, it’s not your fault. It’s my fault, You know, the way I do my business is not conducive to helping you. I think there’s a better book keeper out there for you, and here are three or four recommendations that I have for you, and I wish you all the luck. And again, I think there’s someone out there who could do a better job for you. So that was kind of the gist of the email to him. So he left. She didn’t hear from him.
About three months later, she ends up getting a really nasty negative review from him. And of course, she was devastated. And she was upset, and I got the phone call, and so we followed all of these steps. She didn’t reply, you know, she processed the information. You know, we talked about who he was and the fact that he’s never gonna be happy. And, you know, again, three months later, he’s replying to this. And so she also reached out to several people in her networking group to review what she had written, and they helped turn, really come up with some great details for her reply and just helped her make sure that she was sending a really thoughtful , kind of neutralizing reply to his negative review because she wasn’t trying to win him back, and she knew she couldn’t win him over.
So neutralizing him was gonna be the best thing. And so she did that she got the review posted, but here’s what’s really amazing. And here’s what happened for her because the other people that she reached out to were in her networking group. Of course, a lot of them were her clients , and they were telling her how awesome she was and how amazing she was and how she didn’t deserve to be treated like that. So she got a lot of emotional support there.
So it was really cool was the people that she had asked to help her with the reply. They ended up writing her reviews, and in the next networking meeting, one of those people stood up and said, Hey, you know, we all need to support each other and write reviews for each other’s businesses. And they did. She also sent out the email to all of her past clients and asked for reviews.
Now here’s what’s amazing. She had seven reviews when she received the negative review in 90 days. She had 50 reviews in every review, from 8 to 50 or positive reviews from her current clients , past clients and people in her networking groups. So again she took a negative review, she replied to it. She showcased that she cares about her business and she’s not afraid to address negative criticism, and she also realized the importance of reviews and making sure that s e o would find her and that she wanted to change the math.
Remember , she’s a bookkeeper. And again, if you have some left seven reviews and one of them is a three star of you, it’s gonna bring your score down. So she knew if she had a lot of five star reviews, she could get that score back up. It was a numbers game for her, but it’s really changed her business in the sense that she consistently asked for reviews now. And that’s what we like to encourage you to dio.
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