There is an old adage that states; “If a customer receives a great product or service they may tell a few people. If they receive lousy customer service they tell everyone!” Thanks to the advent of social media people are willing to tell everybody about their experience with your business. Unfortunately not all reviews are stellar but a bad online review is really your chance to shine.
Everyday countless reviews are written on sites like Citysearch, Urbanspoon, and Insider Pages just to name a few. Not only do these sites live and breath on the internet, they have gone mobile. People have the ability to tell millions of people about their experience at your business without even blinking an eye, perhaps even before they leave your doors! Like it or not social media is here to stay, it is ingraining itself in our everyday lives and your business!
Recently I was talking to a business owner about some of the reviews I read on Citysearch.com about her business, She had a nice mix of reviews, when we spoke about the good ones her face glowed with excitement, she felt empowered. When we spoke about the bad ones, she said “I wish I could they would take them off, there not true!” I then asked her how did she respond to the negative ones, she said I didn’t. I followed that up by asking how she responded to the positive ones, she said I didn’t. I preceded to ask her why?
How do you respond to what is being said about you and your business online? Do you acknowledge the people that took time to write about their experience? Do you even care? You cant control what people say about you, you can however, control how you respond. Take the opportunity to engage the people that take time to review you bot good and bad.
If you get a good review say thank you to the person that gave it just as you would in person! It is amazing how often that is overlooked. If you get a bad review this is your opportunity to shine not only to the person that wrote the review, but also to the community that reads the review. It shows that you not only take them seriously but you are committed to great customer service and that you care, believe me this will go along way in retaining old customers while gaining new ones.
Sites like the ones I mentioned are not going away and neither are the voices of the people you service in your business, learn to engage with your customers both online and in person, make yourself accessible. Since you operate within the community why not become active in that community? The fact of the matter is that no matter how hard you try your are not going to be able to please everybody, but at least you can try. In my opinion that holds more weight than a bad review!