Last Updated on September 1, 2023 by David
Guest Post by Jill Goodwin
Every business owner dreads seeing one-star reviews pop up on their website or social media pages. At face value, a poor review can seem like a big hit to your brand’s reputation — but it can have a positive effect too, depending on how you handle it.
If you allow reviews on your web or social pages, it’s a harsh reality that you’ll garner some bad reviews from time to time. Whether you have a physical store, an eCommerce business, or a combination of the two, it’s impossible to please all of your customers, all the time.
However, negative feedback is not something you should try to brush under the rug. By responding, you can use it to your benefit! Read on as we break down how to best use negative reviews to give your business an unexpected boost.
Understanding Poor Reviews
It’s impossible to guarantee your business will only ever receive 5-star reviews. Bearing this in mind, why are businesses so fearful of negative feedback?
Bad reviews carry many concerning connotations for businesses, but these connotations don’t always reflect the truth. Receiving a poor review doesn’t mean your business is substandard, your products are lacking, or that your company is doing something wrong and will suffer.
In short, the best way to combat negative reviews is to attract more positive ones. Anyone who’s ever owned a business in the modern age has had to deal with their fair share of bad reviews. If every business who had garnered a poor review closed up shop, the growing eCommerce industry wouldn’t exist.
If you receive a bad review, the most important thing to remember is that it doesn’t mean you offer ‘bad’ products or services. In most cases, 1-star reviews result from mismatched expectations from customers, or perhaps even reflect the fact that the reviewer was having a bad day themselves.
Why Bad Reviews are Important for Businesses
It might seem hard to believe, but 1-star reviews can bring with them many positive aspects if you harbor the right mindset around them.
Bad reviews can make good reviews seem more authentic. When a business is willing to display all of their reviews — good and bad — they show their customers they have nothing to hide. People will trust reviews far more if they see a balanced mix of feedback.
Many customers know that fake reviews are rife in the eCommerce industry. If they see nothing but rave 5-star reviews, they may become suspicious of a company and its products, and avoid them altogether.
Bad reviews also guide customers in making the right purchases for their needs. They give shoppers a genuine picture of how your products and services perform. One of the primary reasons customers leave poor reviews is that the offending products did not meet their expectations — but this can be helpful to future shoppers.
Say an online clothing store receives a review on one of their jackets; several customers have complained the fit of the jacket is smaller than they expected. Future customers can read those reviews and know they need to order a size up, allowing them to make more informed purchases.
A Chance to Build Trust
When customers see bad reviews for products they’re keen to purchase, they’ll keep an eye out for how your business responds to that feedback.
You can build trust in your brand by interacting with shoppers who have had poor experiences and showing that you’re willing to be proactive about dealing with problems.
Poor Reviews Boost Your SEO Rankings
It may seem counter-intuitive, but it’s true: poor reviews, just like positive or neutral ones, can still positively affect your SEO rankings.
Even negative reviews can contain important keywords that pertain to your brand, which will help consumers to find your products during their web searches. If you don’t publish your 1-star reviews, you could miss out on a great opportunity to boost your website traffic and sales figures.
How to Handle Bad Reviews
The golden rule for handling negative reviews about your business is never to ignore them. Instead, handle them by:
- Remaining calm. Remember that bad reviews don’t spell the end of your business, and can help it in the long run. Don’t argue, hurl insults, or threaten to sue over a review, this will only reflect badly on your brand.
- Publishing your poor reviews. Don’t remove them! Posting negative feedback signals to other customers that you have nothing to hide.
- Responding publicly. Show your customers you care about their experiences and are willing to resolve negative ones by responding to their reviews. Responding respectfully to bad reviews has shown to boost business’s revenues and could help to keep customers.
- Learning from the feedback. There’s something you can learn from every poor review received. Take the feedback on board, use it to address core issues, and make targeted changes to your products and services.
- Following up with reviewers. After interacting with dissatisfied customers, follow up to ensure they’re happy with how you resolved the issue. Your diligence will impress them, and may even come to regard their negative experience as a positive one.
- Gaining more positive reviews. Ask customers to review your product. People will review positively unless there’s a major issue and this will detract from previous negative feedback. Garnering more positive comments for your business takes time, dedication, and patience!
The Takeaway
A 1-star review doesn’t spell disaster for your business. Each negative review you receive gives you a golden opportunity to improve your customer experience and renew your shoppers’ trust in your services and products.
The most crucial trick to handling bad reviews is never to sweep them under the rug or ignore those who leave them. Handle issues head-on with diplomacy and tact, and you may win over even the most demanding customers!
About Re:amaze
Re:amaze is a modern helpdesk and customer messaging platform designed to help eCommerce businesses boost customer happiness and revenue. Re:amaze allows all customer-oriented teams to work together in a shared inbox through email, social, SMS, voice, and live chat. Re:amaze also comes packaged with automated messaging and chatbots so eCommerce brands can succeed at the front lines of conversational commerce.
About Jill
Jill Goodwin is a content champion for a variety of online publications. She mainly covers topics that cater to business owners and entrepreneurs with a strong focus on finances, productivity and management.