Receiving an awful one-star review on your business seems like the end of the world, but hope is not lost. There are services and steps you can take to successfully perform online reputation repair. Here are a few tips guaranteed to help you if your business runs into trouble online.
Create a presence
It would help if you tried to build your presence on any relevant website, reviews site, and social media, like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. The more sites you have an account in, the more likely you’ll spot a negative online review and deal with it quickly.
Use site monitoring tools to detect when your business has been mentioned online. If it’s a negative review, apologize, promise better service, and offer an incentive for the customer to give you a second chance. For example, if you’re active on Twitter, you can spot criticism when it comes up and immediately take action. The faster you take action on negative reviews on sites and social media, the better your reputation.
Blog
An excellent way to build a good online reputation is to create blog posts. This could be about anything, from new products and customer testimonials to sales and company projects. Your blog can be your platform for promoting your brand’s message and advocacy. If you’re eco-friendly or cruelty-free, you can run campaigns relevant to your message, like feeding programs for animal shelters or donations to charities. Your blog can also be where you can make statements about improving after negative experiences. If your customers experienced harassment or discrimination at your store, you could recover by updating customers on your blog. Show them how you’re educating your staff and removing bias and prejudice.
Respond to reviews
Related to creating a presence, you should respond to reviews wherever possible. It could be as simple as “Thank you for your review!” or as complicated as a thorough response to their concerns. Responding to reviews is the most important step in online reputation repair and gives customers the impression that you’re taking their opinions seriously. It means you care deeply about the customers and want to make things right. There’s nothing customers love more than knowing a business is listening and acting on their concerns. Most customers understand that all companies are likely to receive negative reviews at least once or twice. What will stick with them is how a company deals with negative thoughts. It’s not about
Apologize
As a professional business, you should apologize wherever possible. If someone complains about the slowness of service in your business, you can apologize for this and promise improvement next time. This helps customers trust the company, knowing that they can face their own mistakes and do something about them.
Don’t argue
Finally, it’s best not to get sucked into online arguments. Accept that comments about your business are not a personal attack against you but an opportunity for you to improve. Thank your customer for the feedback and reflect on it so you can improve future experiences.
Bottomline: Online reputation repair
Online reputation repair is challenging, but the best thing to remember is that this is something that needs time. You may run into a scandal and be inundated with negative reviews for a while, but stay patient, and you’ll get back on your feet.