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Video Summary
Having a strong reputation is crucial if you want to build trust and credibility with your clients. Online reviews continue to grow in value and have a significant impact on the visibility of your business in your local area. And constant visibility converts to potential new customers and sales.
If you run a small business, bad reviews can really hurt you, especially when they’re Google reviews. You can’t just ignore them.
People who see your bad reviews don’t call you and tell you they’re going to a competitor. They just do. You lose business in silence, and so you might think those negative reviews don’t matter. But they do.
So how do you handle bad reviews? Here are some tips and an outline to help you write a good response…
Video Transcript
Hello, my name is Jeffrey Kirk.
Having a strong reputation is crucial if you want to build trust and credibility with your clients. Online reviews continue to grow in value and have a significant impact on the visibility of your business in your local area. And constant visibility converts to potential new customers and sales.
To encourage your clients to leave reviews that make a difference, always make sure they have a positive experience with your business.
If you want some tips on how to create a strong reputation through online reviews and customer feedback, I have a previous video on that topic. I will leave the link here for easy access. Go ahead and check that out.
And while you’re here, please subscribe to my YouTube channel and click that notification bell so you get notified when a new video is uploaded. Thanks for doing that.
Okay, where was I? Oh yeah, I’m talking about Google reviews and how to handle bad ones… If you run a small business, bad reviews can really hurt you, especially when they’re Google reviews. You can’t just ignore them.
People who see your bad reviews don’t call you and tell you they’re going to a competitor. They just do. You lose business in silence, and so you might think those negative reviews don’t matter. But they do.
So how do you handle bad reviews?
The most important thing is how you respond to them. Dealing with one-star reviews can be tough and take time, but I’ll give you some tips and an outline to help you write a good response.
How you reply to an unhappy client can either make people believe you care about their experience, or you can make them think you don’t care at all. That means, when you respond to reviews, always think about the feelings of the recipient of your response, as well as the feelings of those who read the review and your response later.
Okay then, where do you start?
I hate to say it, sometimes people leave bad reviews for all the wrong reasons. So the first thing you should do is check to see if the review is real or fake.
Spotting fake reviews can be tricky, especially when the person writing them doesn’t want you to know they’re fake. This can be especially difficult if your business serves strangers who come and go without identifying themselves.
If you have a small business providing personalized services, you know your clients, and you can more easily recognize a review when it’s not real. But when a review is fake, the person has to make it sound like they actually had a bad experience with your business. So, they’ll try to convince others by giving specific reasons why they had a bad time or why someone should not do business with you.
And fake reviews often include kind of strange details that don’t really relate to the complaint, so keep an eye out for those. I know fake reviews, especially fake negative reviews, are a concern for some businesses, so before I move on to tell you how to respond to negative reviews, let me quickly cover how to report fake reviews on Google…
How to Report Fake Reviews
First, make sure you’re logged into your Google My Business account, and you have already claimed your business. Then go to your business profile on Google, either by clicking “View my Profile” or by finding your business in the Google Search results.
Third, look at your reviews and find the offending one. Fourth, click the three vertical dots to the upper right of the review and choose “Report Review.”
And finally, you’ll see a list of reasons to report. There’s no exact option for “fake,” so the closest one is “Off topic.” And most likely you can go with that.
However, if you’re certain the fake review is from a competitor or maybe a former employee, you can pick “Conflict of interest.” Or, if the negative review violates Google’s other guidelines, you can ask Google to remove it using a different selection. These include…
- Profanity or other undesirable language.
- Bullying or harassment of someone.
- Discrimination or saying hateful things.
- Sharing someone’s personal information.
After you’ve made the selection, click the Send report button that you’ll find at the bottom. And that’s it. That’s how you report a fake review or some other review violation.
Now I want to get back to replying to your reviews. This is the most important thing. It doesn’t matter whether a review is good or bad, genuine or fake; you should respond to all your customer reviews in a timely manner. Doing this allows you to demonstrate your great customer service because you are proactively reaching out to your clients.
Responding to Reviews
For those who say good things and for those who truly had problems, your response is an acknowledgement that you’re paying attention. And this shows you’re involved, and you value your customers.
For the negative reviews, when you respond, you should try to make things right. Truly apologize for any trouble your business may have caused and offer solutions to help the customer achieve what they initially wanted.
Ideally, you should do more with a negative review than just apologize online though. If possible, call the unhappy client and have a conversation. Make sure they feel heard, and try to fix the problem. If you don’t have their contact info, leave them some way to contact you. Ask them to reach out so you can resolve the issues.
If the review is fake, the person who wrote it probably won’t care or bother to respond to your message. But if it’s a real review, from a client with real concerns, the customer will be interested in reading what you have to say. The way you respond to the review will be a little different if it’s fake compared to a real review.
If the review is fake, I would suggest you reply before reporting it to Google. That way, Google sees your reply and that might help them justify the removal.
Responding to a Fake Review
The response to a fake review includes two steps. First, start by thanking them for taking the time to leave a review. Even though you believe the review is fake, you still want to appear sincere for anyone reading your response.
Second, say something like, “We’re sorry you had an experience like this, but we have no record that you are a client of our business. If we are mistaken, please reach out to us in another way or check your details and leave a review for the appropriate business instead.”
There’s not much else you can do with a fake review. A quick response to establish your position and then report it with the hope it goes away completely. But even if it doesn’t go away, you have let others know that it’s invalid.
Responding to a Negative Review
Now let me give you a quick outline for your response to a legitimate negative review…
- Again, start by thanking them for taking the time to leave a review.
- Apologize that they didn’t get the experience they expected, and let them know you understand their concerns.
- Provide a brief explanation giving some information or context, but do not make it sound like you’re making excuses or downplaying their feelings. Otherwise, the apology loses all power.
- Tell them their experience doesn’t meet your usual standards, and elaborate a little on what those standards are.
- Offer to make it right by giving a path to fix the problem.
In the best case, you’ll work together, solve the issue, and they might update their review. Changing a 1‑star into 5 perhaps.
In the worst case, other people reading the reviews will see that you care about your customers, which can make them more willing to overlook the negative review.
In the end, a single bad review, or even several, won’t ruin your business especially if you actively engage with all your reviews, whether they’re good or bad. People who might become your customers are smart. They know that bad reviews can happen to any business, and they expect that not everyone will be happy all the time.
In fact, some people get suspicious if they only see glowing reviews. So, your best move is to address any negative reviews by responding to them. The other thing you should do is get all clients to leave reviews, so your Google profile reflects the real experiences people have with your business.
When positive reviews greatly outnumber the negative ones, your business shines compared to other businesses. And these positive comments can really help convince others to choose your business.
Online reviews continue to grow in value and they have a significant impact on your visibility in your local area. So give your clients the positive experiences they deserve, and make it easy for them to say good things about your business and leave you good, positive reviews.
Now, what would it do for your business to have a steady stream of positive reviews coming in? What if you had more reviews than competing businesses? What would that do for you?
I have a training webinar that covers this topic. And by attending the webinar, you can get a free trial to software that makes the review-getting process super simple for your business.
You can register for free at upatdawn.biz/webinar. Just type that into your browser or look for the link below and join me soon.
Your business deserves to be seen online, and I will help you get there.
Thanks for watching and have a great day!
