First, let’s understand why we work with negativity at all. The answer, in fact, lies on the surface. When a customer is unhappy with a product, they won’t buy it from you a second time. But tell all your friends that things might go wrong for you. And the worst thing is that he will most likely leave a devastating review that will discourage potential customers from purchasing.
To avoid these consequences, we practice negative feedback.
How to work with negative reviews: step-by-step instructions
Productive work with such feedback is based on 3 pillars:
1. Analysis of negativity from customers = understanding the company’s real problems
To do this you need:
- Carefully analyze negative feedback;
- Identify from reviews the main problems of the company when working with a client;
- Plan ahead to solve these problems based on the information received.
So, after a couple of months, you will receive standard action algorithms that need to be taken to reduce negativity and solve customer problems.
By the way, many mailing services and almost all CRM systems can automate this process.
2. Respond quickly to negativity from dissatisfied customers
Provide feedback to dissatisfied customers as quickly as possible. Your answers should be constructive and written in simple human language. And most importantly, your answers should offer the customer a solution to their problem.
Here is a living example of a cool and unconventional response to a client. You can use it as a basis for responding to negativity in your company.
3. Promote positive reviews about you in search engines
Become actively collecting positive reviews about your company. Post them on social media and your platforms to balance out the negativity.
A little secret: according to research by Spiegel, most often people buy from companies with ratings of 4 or more .0 to 4.7. If the valuation gets higher, the number of sales starts to decrease. The reason for this decline is that perfect ratings are like gimmicks and lack credibility. And ratings below 4.0 indicate low quality of services or goods.
What to do to get more good reviews?
1. Ask customers to leave a response as soon as they make a purchase. In this case, the chance of receiving a review will be higher, because at the time of purchase people experience strong emotions. After a few days they will subside and it will be more difficult to get feedback. The easier it is for the client to do this, the better.
2. Provide a link to the review form or your application. You can stick QR codes in visible places. Or you can send a link to them in the messenger the client uses.
3. So that the client does not rack his brains about what to write to him, give him a list of specific questions. It will be easier for everyone. The buyer can easily formulate his thoughts and impressions. And you will increase your chance of getting a good review.
4. Write to the customer a few days after purchase and ask how they liked your product. Such a question will not cause negativity.
An experiment proves this Harvard Business Review.
5. Offer the buyer a bonus or gift for reviewing. To do this, you can connect special services that reward customers for their activity.
6. Periodically hold sweepstakes or competitions for leaving reviews about your product. This strategy always works. After all, everyone likes getting something for free. Use this mindset to get good reviews.
Conclusions
Proper handling of negativity can become a point of growth for your business. Negativity highlights weak areas in a company that need to be improved. And dealing with negative reviews can turn them into positive ones.
Use positive reviews as a tool for business promotion and development.
To do this you need:
- Initiate dialogue with customers yourself and ask for feedback;
- Deal with negativity before it gets into social networks and search services;
- Resolve customer problems in a timely manner and give bonuses and gifts if the problem arose through your fault;
- Take an unconventional approach to responding to negativity;
- Encourage clients for their activity;
- Hold competitions and sweepstakes;
- And promote positive comments about your company.
Friends, thank you for reading the article to the end!
