Tackling Bad Business Reviews: Can Your Business Recover From It?

The customers are the building block of any business’ success. Meeting their demands and keeping them satisfied with both the supplied goods and service provided is often at the forefront of any business’ strategy, especially in an ever-changing business environment as Durango. 2018 saw a handful of long-standing local businesses say goodbye to Durango, Colorado and a change in competition in the form of new companies. For those present businesses, just as a positive review can skyrocket your sales, dissatisfied feedback from customers can unravel all the progress businesses have made in building its brand and its rapport with its customers. This is exactly why it is important that you deal with aggrieved or unsatisfied customers and bad feedback in the right way. Handled correctly, a bad review can be a stepping stone to business improvement, marketing, and even customer acquisition.

Engage And Listen To All Reviews, The Good And The Bad

Customers want to know that they are being heard. Having high customer engagement levels is one of the best things you can do in customer relations. If you opt to ignore a customer’s review, you are risking the chance of remedying that bad experience of one customer and risking that one unfavorable review impacting others. Potential customers will view your business as inaccessible, and accessibility of brands is a huge issue for consumers today. While it a great start to carve out a place on social media and local platforms, you must also actively make use of these channels including when a bad review is left. Approximately 82 percent of customers expect an immediate response to inquiries, which highlights just how important it is to not only respond but do so in a timely manner. Customers appreciate quick responses just as much as they value being heard.

Practice And Acknowledge Self Responsibility

When it comes to your response, you must be prepared as a business to look inward at any failures in your customer service or good provided. Accepting responsibility in lieu of becoming defensive tells the customers that your business is one that is willing to put in the work to satisfy customers. There is a novelty in a company or even small business that is able to not only realize its faults but work to correct them with the customers in mind. Keep your response personalized as well. While a standard apology is a great starting point, be sure to incorporate the customer’s specific complaints and purchasing situation. Personalized experiences go a very long way with customers and this includes responding to feedback.

Bring Your Customers Onboard

A great way to improve your business image and turn it around after bad press is to involve those that give those reviews in the first place. Ask your customers what they want to see changed and why. Be sure to include industry critics and make use of feedback platforms to gather a wide range of information. As noted on platforms such as ComplaintsBase, online critics can be very honest in their feedback and this can have a huge impact on customer behavior. Around 86 percent of customers check reviews for local businesses while they also read an average of 10 reviews before being able to trust a local business, according to BrightLocal’s Local Consumer Review Survey in 2018. Use this as your starting point for improvement. By putting yourself in the customer’s shoes you have a better chance of identifying and satisfying their unmet demands. Don’t stop at simply asking your customers either; reward them for their input and for remaining loyal.

Bring The Positive To The Forefront

Promoting positive reviews and area where your business is performing well garners positive press; a key component in gaining the interest and boosting the loyalty of customers once again. A great tip is to make it local; use local press release platforms and newspapers. BrightLocal’s survey showed that 73 percent of customers trust a company more after reading a positive review and 57 percent of them visited a company website after reading a positive review. Highlighting the good helps to mitigate the bad and show customers that while your business may have some work to do, there are things you do well.

As a business, the incorporation and opening is just the beginning of your journey. To sustain your success and in some cases, bring your business back from the brink of collapse caused by poor reviews, requires you to be inventive and customer oriented. In such a competitive environment as Durango, letting one bad review go unaddressed can be the string that unravels your business’ foothold in the industry. Acknowledge it, address it and act on it. Do this and you can rebuild your business and your brand.

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