Around 84 percent of people trust online reviews as much as friends. That’s why it’s important to make sure you have a strategy in place to deal with reviews.
Whether you receive an amazing review or devastating feedback, you need to know how to respond to your reviews.
Check out our guide below for how to reply the right way. Let’s get started on the best way to respond to feedback online.
1. Always Say Thanks for the Review
Whether the review is positive or negative, you should make sure you thank the reviewer. Greeting the review in a friendly and professional manner is always advised.
Make the response as human as possible. This could include mentioning the server who they praised by name.
If the review is bad, you should immediately say sorry. Don’t focus on excuses – the customer is always “right” after all.
2. Add Some Marketing in Your Response
Remember that around 91 percent of customers regularly read reviews online. That’s an opportunity to promote your business.
Even if the review is negative, you can always emphasize that usually, your business runs much better than this.
For example, say that “normally your service is praised” or that “customers are often delighted by our low prices.”
If the review is positive, you can go in even harder. You could promote a new product range or highlight some exciting news about your business.
3. Keep it Short and Simple
It’s never good to offer an overly detailed response to a review. This can be extremely tempting when you get negative feedback.
You might even want to go through every point to make up an excuse. But, this seriously isn’t worthwhile.
You should concentrate on keeping a simple and short message in reply rather than making even more of a fuss.
If you want to understand the marketing psychology behind this, check out social proof marketing.
4. Either Push or Pull the Review
You might not realize that every online review is also displayed on search engine results pages.
So, if customers use particular search terms, they might discover a review on TripAdvisor or Google.
Therefore, if you have a positive review, you might want to mention your business name and location to ensure it is optimized for search engines.
Likewise, whenever you receive a bad review, take it offline as quickly as possible. Invite the customer to contact you via telephone.
5. Give the Customer a Call to Action
You should also give the customer a call to action. This is your opportunity to invite the customer to engage with your business even more.
This could include urging them to visit you again. Don’t let them forget about you by not mentioning your website or social media channels.
If the customer wasn’t satisfied, you might want to offer them a special discount or encourage them to return to you for a better experience.
How to Respond to Feedback
You shouldn’t deal with every review in the same manner. You need to consider whether the review is positive or negative.
But, you don’t want to rush into it when you respond to feedback. Think carefully about how you can use this opportunity.
Check out our blog to learn more!