How to Respond to a Bad Review on Social Media
Even a business with a stellar reputation gets a bad review once in awhile. Whether the review was merited is another question, but at this point, your first priority needs to be dealing with the review in a constructive manner. In the age when online activity lives forever (or at least indefinitely) that bad review on your social media account can be a thorn in your side. But if you deal with the review the right way, you can potentially mitigate its effects. Who knows, you could even turn it from a problem into an example of model customer service for all to see!
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Learn more about responding to a bad review in our blog.
How do you respond to a bad review on your social media sites?
How to Respond to a Bad Review on Social Media
The Don’ts
- Don’t ignore it. Some business owners think that if they ignore a review it will just go away. Not so on the Internet. For better or for worse, everything lives forever online, which means you need to take action.
- Don’t remove it. Taking action should never entail removing the review or trying to bury it by getting a few friends to write some good fake reviews. Removing the review will likely only make the reviewer more upset, prompting them to write another review. Now you’ve got a review that explicitly mentions how you tried to remove their previous review. This is not what you want people to see on your social media sites.
- Don’t argue. The reviewer may have a legitimate grievance with your business. On the other hand, they might not. Either way, you should never argue with an upset reviewer on social media. It will always result in you looking bad.
The Do’s
- Respond to the review. Use a professional tone and let the reviewer know that you intend to address the situation.
- Apologize. Sometimes this doesn’t come easily, especially if you feel the reviewer doesn’t have a legitimate grievance. But you should never underestimate the power of an apology.
- Move the conversation offline. Your initial response should include an apology and announce your intention to address the situation. Then, you should provide the reviewer with a direct line of communication such as an email address or phone number. The purpose of this is two-fold. One, it shows your commitment on a personal level to making things right. And two, it gets the conversation offline as soon as possible.
By the way, here are two more don’ts. Don’t forget to check out our blogs on dealing with fake reviews, and the new updates to the Facebook news feed!
To learn more about social media marketing, be sure to keep up with our blog. Contact Adventure Web Interactive today to learn more about your business’ social media presence! Call us at 410.788.7007.
