How best to respond to negative online reviews?

Negative reviews on Google and other online portals as an opportunity for your business

Negative reviews can quickly make you feel sick to your stomach. What if these negative reviews scare off new prospects? What if I lose customers as a result, and with them, sales? This much should be said. Negative reviews are no reason to panic and are part of doing business. In the same way, even the best soccer team loses a game now and then.

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Negative reviews should be seen as an opportunity. Analyze the facts very carefully and try to put yourself in the customer's shoes. Is this rating justified? Can I optimize my service for next time? Try to take these reviews seriously and learn from them.

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No negative evaluation may remain uncommented!

In our digital world, it is already absolutely normal for potential customers to find out about a service or product online. The first port of call is often Google reviews. If you do not respond to negative reviews, customers may conclude that the criticism is justified or that you do not take the customers' criticism seriously. This often results in customers choosing the competition.

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Reviews are your digital flagship and optimized listings in Google have a strong impact on the overall success of your business. Accordingly, you should take a factual position on the criticism and also publish this opinion.

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The best reaction to negative reviews on Google, Trustpilot and Co.

You should follow these 5 rules when dealing with negative reviews:

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Try to put yourself in the customer's shoes

Negative reviews or honest feedback is always an opportunity to optimize your own performance. With the help of the feedback, you know which screws you can still turn to provide an even better customer experience. Accordingly, try to understand exactly why the poor rating occurred. It may be necessary to ask questions in order to understand the customer even better.

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Stay objective and do not take it personally

It is often recommended that you do not respond directly to the assessment. Try to wait a few hours before responding to the issue. Remain professional in your choice of words and show empathy.

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Apologize

Even if you think the review is not justified, apologize publicly to your customer. This shows greatness and shows that you take the review to heart and have the will to do better in the future.

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Do not justify yourself

Justifications are usually not well received. Instead, try to understand the facts and the reason for the criticism and show that you will do better next time.

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Talk personally with your customer

After the public response, try to contact the customer to finalize the issue. At all costs, you want to avoid a public discussion that your prospects can publicly witness!

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How to collect positive online reviews on Google and Co.

Unfortunately, customers tend to be more likely to leave a review if they had a negative experience. See it as an opportunity and try to learn from it. If you have managed to satisfy your critical customer after all, ask them to change the rating. Optimally, your customer will respond and change their original negative review to a positive one.

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However, you should put just as much focus on proactively collecting positive reviews. Put yourself in the position of how many times you had a great experience and unfortunately didn't leave a review. Often, the hurdle is too great or you simply forget about it in the very stressful daily grind. Encourage satisfied customers to leave a positive review. If the experience was positive, a satisfied customer will also be happy to leave a positive review. You can, for example, give the corresponding customers a business card with a QR code to your Google business profile or send a direct link by mail with the request for a review. By the way, many positive reviews in Google My Business profiles also increase your ranking in search results. For more helpful tips on optimizing your Google My Business profile, check out our blog article "Google My Business Account: The most important information at a glance".

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How MATEO helps you optimize Google reviews

Addressing your customers personally about a review over and over again can be very annoying and unpleasant in the long run. That's why you should look at software that supports you in rating management. With the MATEO communication platform, you motivate your customers to leave an online rating via their preferred communication channel. This can be left with just a few clicks.

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In summary, some advantages of MATEO

1. be available on customers' preferred channels. Studies show that the majority of communication today takes place via Messenger. Be available for your customers there as well.

2. respond faster to customer inquiries through a central inbox. The faster you respond to prospects, the more likely they are to become customers.

3. send a review link to the customer and ask them to give an honest review.

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With Mateo you not only collect more positive Google reviews, but also improve the search engine ranking of your company

Since both the number of reviews and the average rating are extremely relevant for Google's algorithm and thus for the ranking in the results, Mateo's software offers the possibility to automatically request reviews from your customers. Through this feature, you will accordingly receive more impressions on the web and thus a significantly increased interest among potential customers. With Mateo, you can collect authentic reviews, improve your online reputation and create an outstanding customer experience. Mateo also lets you view, respond to, and manage your online reviews. And this is just a side feature of Mateo's messaging tool, which bundles all popular communication channels into one central inbox. Not only is Mateo scalable for all sizes of businesses and, unlike WhatsApp Business, GDPR compliant, but it's also a low-cost provider of WhatsApp API integrations at the same time. Feel free to watch a demo video and schedule a free consultation.

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How to react to negative online reviews on Google, Trustpilot and other online portals?