Responding Constructively to Readers’ Reviews

Reputation Management
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If you have a web presence for business, everyone has access to your presence and people love to make themselves heard. Some of the reviews online will be positive and many will be negative. Responding effectively is critical to you.

How should you respond to negative reviews?

When people like something, they can be very nice about it online. However, when people don’t like something, their words can be scathing at times. The important thing is not what they say. The important thing is what you do about what they say. The first question that comes to mind is whether you should respond at all to a really negative review. Of course, if you don’t respond, you are giving your online reviewers the fodder to think the worst. On the other hand, if you do respond but your response is not what it should be, you are running the risk of making things worse than they were before.

There are different ways that you can approach the people who have written negative reviews. The ideas will be laid out here and you can use them as is or adapt them to your particular business and hope that they work effectively for you.

The issue

Before you can even consider responding to a negative review, you need to try to identify the problem, especially if you see a pattern. If several people are saying more or less the same thing over and over again, you need to try to fix the problem before anything else. First and foremost, you need to protect your reputation. There are several reputation managements tools that can help you to identify patterns and once you have been able to accomplish that, you can begin to think about a solution.

The bottom line

No matter how negative the review was, your response must be well thought out, genuine and carefully written. It is important to remember that you represent your brand. In fact, you are your brand. With that in mind, you must protect your brand and your company’s reputation at all costs. It is very important that you pay close attention to details and that you articulate properly in your response. One of your goals is to positively affect the reviewer and you won’t achieve that if your writing is formal and impersonal. You must sincerely express your gratitude for the fact that the reviewer took the time to write to you, even if if was painful to read. Let your reviewer understand that you greatly appreciate the feedback and that you will use it to improve upon your products and/or services. It is critical that you respond to the reviewer quickly and express how important their feedback is to your business.

How to respond

If your reviewer’s subject matter in their review is concerning pricing, it is very important that your response to them is not in any way defensive, patronizing or hostile. You should communicate to them that you know that your prices are comparable to the prices of your competitors and explain why they should be choosing your products and/or services over your competitors’ products and/or services. Communicate clearly exactly what your edge is and why it will benefit them. Be careful not to knock them over the head with your sales strategy. Subtlety generally works most effectively and it is wise to employ that approach.

It is not personal

When a reviewer write the review, as difficult as it is to remember, the person has probably not written the review because of any personal feelings. If the reviewer in any way makes it personal, you will respond in a certain way. On the other hand, if the review is all about business, you will respond in a different way. Personal attacks can be very upsetting and the situation should be handled carefully. You will most likely understand how to respond based on what is being said and hopefully, you will handle the situation effectively.

Circumstances: in and out of your control

There are times when you make mistakes. It happens to everyone. If that happens, recognize the error to the reviewer, apologize for it and move on. If you don’t demonstrate a gesture of good faith, you may be damaging your reputation and that is the last thing that you need to do. For those things that are under your control, you need to tackle the problem so that it doesn’t happen again. It all goes back to reputation.

Conclusion

There is no business in the world that has never experienced some negative feedback. It is bound to happen. What is important is what you do with that information. You should regard it as a learning experience and a chance to improve your business. It is important to have a strategy in mind for when you receive the negative reviews. If you have done your homework and are prepared, you won’t have any problem. It is important for you to pay attention to what people are saying and make sure that the perception that you create of you and your business helps you to build valuable and sustaining relationships. Remember that it is usually the negative experiences that will teach you the most and that you will remember the most clearly.

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Author

  • Carolyn Cohn

    Carolyn Cohn is the Co-Founder & Chief Creative Services of CompuKol Communications. Carolyn manages CompuKol’s creative and editorial department, which consists of writers and editors. Her weekly blogs are syndicated globally. She has decades of editorial experience in online editing, and editing books, journal articles, abstracts, and promotional and educational materials. Carolyn earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the State University of New York (SUNY) at Buffalo.

10 Responses

  1. Fred Fields says:

    Rhianne via Google+

    There are many levels too – working in online community management over the last few years has taught us that there are subtle threats lurking too. One of the more obvious: people register with one set of profile details and then once inside the community, they change the details, and wreak havoc by spamming members, or hacking with malice. This is instrumental in discrediting the professionalism of the group and is potential damaging if the moderation/management team do not respond quickly. To protect your business reputation you need to be highly proactive, especially if you own an online community.
    People do not realise that they expose ‘the under-belly’ when they step into the social media zone. ~ Rhianne

  2. Bogdan Fiedur says:

    Bogdan Fiedur via Google+

    I believe this should be shouted out to all owners of different communities. While I “prefer” to look at the positives and see the best in people/members, the reality is that there those who want to create havoc for any number of reasons. Being proactive is incredibly important and thank you for saying this in a way that will be understood by everyone!

  3. Elaine R. Firestone says:

    Via LinkedIn Groups
    Group: Freelance Editing Network
    Discussion: Responding Constructively to Readers’ Reviews

    Most definitely. If the review is positive, great! You’re doing something right. If, however, it’s negative, you should determine why it was negative. Did the reviewer misinterpret something you wrote? If so, figure out how to respond so the reviewer understands where he/she went wrong without putting them on the defensive.
    By Elaine R. Firestone, ELS

  4. Christina Hamlett says:

    Via LinkedIn Groups
    Group: Professional Writers
    Discussion: Responding Constructively to Readers’ Reviews

    This is not unlike the feedback I get from the aspiring screenwriters for whom I do coverage notes. I emphasize to them the subjective nature of the craft of writing and that every reader – whether it’s a paid professional, a coworker or a friend – comes to the table with a different frame of reference. If 10 people identify 10 completely different things to find fault with, it just goes to support the subjectivity argument. If, however, those 10 people all point out the same shortcomings of the writing, that’s when it merits paying attention and considering a reinvention of your content. Unfortunately, too many people get baited into an cyber-argument and this is a waste of time for both parties. The best route if someone is negative is to politely agree to disagree, and respectfully thank them for taking the time to comment.
    By Christina Hamlett

  5. Ann says:

    Carolyn, one of my clients got some real mean comments. We looked him up and he boasted about being that way. There is another option that we decided to do about him, that was not approve his comments. Not the best idea, but he wasn’t adding anything useful in place of what he said was wrong.

  6. Doris Meredith says:

    Via LinkedIn Groups
    Group: Writers World
    Discussion: Responding Constructively to Readers’ Reviews

    I always thank those who write a positive review and run into the other room and curse at bad reviews, then get on with my life. Every reviewer has a right to their opinions, and sometimes I find the criticism constructive. Nothing is accomplished by personally ranting at a reviewer.
    By Doris Meredith

  7. Henry McKelvey says:

    Shell Robshaw-Bryan via socialmediatoday.com

    Good article. I always advise clients not to be scared of negative reviews. Sometimes they can provide great opportunities to show how brilliant your customer service is and do you much more harm than good. Monitoring mentions and keeping on top of reputation management is key however; it’s easy for not only unhappy customers but underhanded competitors to post very damaging reviews – with anything false appraoch the review site with your side of the story and request they remove it. Most of the time however, I think the odd bad review should be used as a learning experience, but remember, it’s impossible to please everyone all the time!

  8. Ann Redisch Stampler says:

    Via LinkedIn Groups
    Group: Writers World
    Discussion: Responding Constructively to Readers’ Reviews

    Carolyn, I’m just not sure it’s beneficial to respond to a negative review. I can see responding to criticism of non-fiction that is factually incorrect or that misrepresents content, or to criticism that reflects some form of intolerance, racism and such. But if a reader simply doesn’t like the book, I don’t think that it benefits the writer to do much more than saying to him or herself, oh, that’s unfortunate, and moving on.
    By Ann Redisch Stampler

  9. Marquita Herald says:

    Via LinkedIn Groups
    Group: Writers World
    Discussion: Responding Constructively to Readers’ Reviews

    I think responding to a negative review is asking for trouble. So far I’ve had only a couple (knock on wood), but the one that bothered me the most was clearly someone who hadn’t read the description but just grabbed it when it was on a free sale day and then got pissy when the book wasn’t what they expected. There is no way I could turn something like that around – better to move on and just keep writing.
    By Marquita Herald

  10. Linda Rondeau says:

    Via LinkedIn Groups
    Group: Writers World
    Discussion: Responding Constructively to Readers’ Reviews

    I had a few negative reviews on It Really Is a Wonderful Life. Some I had to laugh. When the criticized the fact it was religious and they don’t like religious books, I thought, “Duh…it’s advertised as religious so what did you expect?” But, though it was caustic, readers looking for religious books will know that it truly is religious! One person criticized the doctor as unbelievable. Again, I laughed as I patterned the doc after several docs in the small town I came from…dear friends…so I was very knowledgeable about how the small town medical system works. Another person criticized the kids as unbelievably obnoxious. I have extensive experience with young children and most everyone else loved the kids. So I figure everyone is entitled to their opinion…why try to get them to change it or apologize if they don’t like the book? Ever been to rotten tomatoes? No one gets 100. Anything above 70 is good!
    By Linda Rondeau