Working with reviews: how to turn complaints into loyalty?

24.01.2023 11:29

Author and content analyst on trade automation

A negative online review is not a sentence, but a chance for productive changes in the company. If you respond to a negative review in a timely and correct manner, it can be the first step in solving the customer's problem, and as a result, it will promote customer loyalty and build a positive company image, which will directly affect profit growth.

What types of negative reviews are there, and how can you reduce their impact on brand reputation?

What causes customer dissatisfaction?

The most common reasons for negative comments and hate on the Internet, according to a study by Convince&Convert:

Poor customer service and level of service.

Deception of customers, providing false information about the product.
Rude and incompetent employees.
Low-quality product and identified shortcomings in its use.
Complainants' desire to "cash in" on the company's shortcomings.
A user can leave a review on any social network, specialized forums, or third-party websites. Negative mentions of a company damage its reputation, so it is very important how quickly and reasonably you respond to criticism.

Tactics for responding to negative reviews

Before processing a negative review, analyze it according to the following criteria:

The scale of the problem. Comments that appear on the first page of search results can have a viral effect. Look for similar reviews on other resources and study them.
Author of the review. If a comment was written by a public or popular person on social media, you should respond to it first to avoid giving your competitors or rivals a reason to gossip.
A kind of negative. Divide mentions of your store into those that you can control - your media and pages - and those that you cannot control - third-party resources. Check if the complaint is true. If it's a paid-for negative comment, get a lawyer involved. He or she will help you develop a plan of action with customers of such content in the legal field.
A platform for reviews. Determine where users leave reviews most often - on your company's websites, on their own pages, or on third-party information resources.
Reaction of other users: see how many people liked, supported, or reposted a negative review.

To neutralize negative feedback on the Internet, reputation management experts recommend posting community rules on their platforms. For example, that it is forbidden to leave offensive and false comments in the group. If this condition is spelled out, the critic will think 10 times before posting a non-constructive review in the style of "Everything is bad, everyone is stupid."

Types of negative comments

In order to build the right reputation model in your company, develop a communication policy - a set of rules that will help employees communicate with complainants in a consistent manner. To ensure that your work with criticism is systematic, consider the types of feedback and nuances.

Reasoned criticism

Constructive and reasonable criticism is a useful negative for a business owner. If a customer points out problems with an order, such as an incorrect order number or date of purchase, or describes product defects, consider their feedback as "bug fixing" - improving customer service or product.

Here is a rough algorithm for processing such reviews:

Thank the customer for the feedback.
If the criticism is not properly justified, clarify the details of the situation. Ask questions that specify the claim as much as possible: "What exactly is wrong?".
After receiving an answer, move the dialog from the public space to personal communication if the problem cannot be resolved immediately.
Describe the identified shortcomings in the comment to the negative review so that other customers can also see the result of the dispute resolution.
Apologize to the user if the problem arose on your end.
If the customer is disappointed, offer them a discount on their next purchase or another bonus in personal messages to smooth out the conflict.
Keep screenshots of correspondence in case of disputes and possible court proceedings.

Negative emotional feedback

When a customer's expectations from a purchase don't match reality, the degree of disappointment can vary from "it's not what I wanted" to "it's just horrible, just throw it in the trash."

Yes, people behave more freely online than in real life. After all, the identity of Internet users is often not disclosed, so it's easy to write an angry comment incognito, seemingly without violating generally accepted norms of behavior, and most importantly, the author of the comment feels safe, because at any time he or she can simply "disappear" from the discussion. Like a pigeon, he follows and flies away.

метафора: негативні відгуки в інтернеті як голуб на статуї

You, as brand representatives, need to take this into account and not reciprocate in the same way. Most emotional responses are devoid of constructive feedback, but try to get to the bottom of it. Clarifying questions will help, and as a last resort, compensation for the damage caused. If you manage to come to an agreement with the author, you are most likely dealing with a real client.

Purchased bot reviews

Bots can write comments with provocative and negative messages. These are mostly messages that someone has ordered or generated to ruin your reputation. Bots can be not only among your competitors, but also among ordinary customers.

The only tactic for dealing with bots is to reply to a comment, addressing it not to the "author" but to the entire audience that is following the situation. Before doing so, you should expose the troll by looking at his or her social media profile. If it turns out that it is indeed a bot, you should file a complaint with the resource's administration with a request to block its actions.

There is another side to paid reviews. It is manifested in "black PR": publishing false, fake information about your brand, products, and services. This can involve authors who will write about you for money, either nonsense or slander.

If you can't resolve the issue personally, you should contact a SERM specialist who works with online reputation, a lawyer or attorney who can help clarify the situation and determine the tactics for further action with complainants.

In most cases, it is difficult to identify the customer, so in any case, we recommend giving a correct response to the accusations in the post. The easiest way is to ask the owner of the comment to publicly provide documentary evidence of the violation they have identified - screenshots of the order, receipts, invoices, etc.

How to handle negative feedback

Be tactful in any situation. Do not be rude or personal.
Don't overuse clichés - people can react to them more strongly than to service shortcomings.
Make it a rule to respond to neutral reviews within a few hours, a day at most, and to negative reviews with obvious signs of "black PR" within five minutes, an hour at most, if you are able to control your emotions.
Create constructors for responses to the most common customer reviews and objections. But put a note opposite each one - "depending on the context".
Try to process as many comments as possible, even positive ones. This will build a reputation that you care about your customers and respond to every request.
Check out our tips in the article on how to respond to negative reviews.

If you are dealing with honest but negative reviews, take them as an opportunity to improve your in-store service and, in the long run, win more loyal customers and loyal fans of your brand.

Програма обліку товару для інтернет-магазинів, крамниць, торгових точок, складів та виробництва

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