NEW YORK (AP) — Negative online reviews may be hard for small businesses to avoid — even companies with many happy customers can get panned. Marketing consultants, who help companies keep a positive image, say owners should never ignore a bad review, and instead use their best customer service skills to mitigate the damage:
Some tips for dealing with negative reviews:
• Expect that at some point, you’re going to get a bad review. “Somebody’s bound to have a negative experience,” said Ryan Goff, chief marketing officer with MGH, a marketing firm. “Accepting that affects how you deal with the customer.”
• Consider negative reviews as marketing information — the feedback tells you that something about your product or service needs to be changed. And by responding to bad reviews and trying to resolve the problem, a company shows prospective customers that it would be responsive to their needs. “They watch us and know that we’re going to take care of issues and not leave customers hanging,” said Angie Stocklin, co-founder of Readers.com, an online seller of reading glasses.
Some owners also welcome occasional less-than-stellar reviews because some people become suspicious when they see only glowing reviews and think they’re fake.