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Is it important to pay attention to your Google reviews? All local business owners recognize that supplying the best client services feasible for their patrons is vital to running a legitimate company. It is nearly impossible to run a real business without periodically having a disgruntled patron. Most business owners realize for everyone who actually complains there are 10 who just quit coming because they were dissatisfied. So, this is where Google reviews become important! A wise business owner will pay attention to honest complaints and work to resolve all legitimate customer issues.
The advent of Google reviews, Yelp & Facebook has changed the way business owners react to customer complaints. Why? The net currently provides a discontented patron a mega horn to reveal how dissatisfied they've become. All any person needs to do is offer up a poor rating on Google Places, or Yelp, or Facebook and you as a business owner begin to lose money.
When you receive a poor rating your gut response, as a business owner, is to document your side of the story, right? As we chatted, I was able to educate my customer about a much better method to manage it. You see Google provides the company proprietor a rebuttal area directly below the patron's testimonial. Exactly how you deal with that counterclaim could suggest the distinction in between obtaining even more consumers as well as not.
This Google review may cause you to eat crow, yet this is a small price to pay to be sure the poor rating and refrains from being accusatory and doesn't insult your patron and cause you to lose more business. Perhaps, you should respond in such a way as to deflect the brunt of the accusation while repairing the feelings of your client and the perception of future clients!
Perhaps, as a business owner, you should remember a time you complained to a vendor and they did an excellent job of repair their relationship with you. One of my favorite vendors is Amazon. Recently, my wife placed an order with Amazon and by the time it arrived at our door the product packaging inside the box had been torn open and the product was gone. So, she called Amazone and customer service did the unthinkable. They shipped a product replacement and a $25 gift card as a way of making amends.
Of course, this kind of action is easy for a company that has deep pockets. However, if you are creative you may be able to accomplish the same result without spending a dime.
Here's an idea we suggest to our clients dealing with undesirable Google review. We service a lot of companies who are part of a referral group. This is a great way for all members of the referral group to receive free advertising and new customers. You should go to your fellow referral business owners with a way for all to respond to disgruntled customers all while driving new business for everyone.
Simply, ask each referral partner for an irresistible offer. It can be their new customer offer they are currently advertising or negotiate a custom offer. Your disgruntled customer wins, your referral partner wins, and you win.
This and other kids glove responses show:
A response to the complaint.
- We are a customer-centric company.
- We take culpability for our products/services (although any individual analysis would certainly acknowledge the client had some responsibility for the incident).
- You making effort to make things right look good to anyone reading the review.
- So, eat crow and take the high road! When you do, you always win.
There are other ways of dealing with bad Google reviews. You can get your fans to go to Google and post awesome reviews, most will be more than happy to do so. What this does is push the bad review down the page so it is not likely to be seen.
Of course, if you have responded to the bad review and resolved the customer's issue, then ask them to go back to Google and post a response to the actions you took to rectify their issue. If they don't or aren't willing to do so then you go back and report on the actions you took to resolve the issue. Then your new and prospective customers will know you tried to correct the issue.
If you are going to be a professional provider of products and services these days you actually have to maintain an eye on your online reputation... You cannot turn a blind eye to this stuff since new clients are always seeking the best companies as solution providers! It does not take much to have them go on to your competitors. Just how you handle poor evaluations is extremely vital to your profits.