Most digital marketing experts out there will tell you that negative reviews have the potential to bring your business down. That’s true, to a large extent. However, what most people neglect to mention is that negative reviews are not all that bad. Getting one does not mean the end of the world for your business. Indeed, negative reviews are a part of life! You cannot run away from them! The best that you can do is to learn how to turn them into a positive. In this article, we have compiled some of the reasons why negative reviews are not that bad;
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Having one or two negative reviews gives credibility to your profile
This is something that we have noticed while dealing with reviews in general. People scanning through online reviews are suspicious, and for good reason. There have been many reports of online reviews being gamed. People actually expect businesses to have a few negative reviews. The thinking is that you may be good, but nobody is good enough to get a 5 star rating.
So, having a few bad reviews can actually be a useful tool in boosting the trust that people have in your business. To most people, negative reviews indicate that a profile is genuine. They are much more likely to buy from a business with a rating of 4.7 stars than from one that has a rating of 5 out of 5.
Bad reviews provide useful feedback to help businesses get better
Reviews provide businesses with useful information relating to how they are perceived within the marketplace. As a business, you should always strive to be the best. It’s your duty to always protect your brand. The internet makes the spread of information so simple that adverse feedback can be devastating to your business.
So, what can you do when you get a negative review? Well, you can definitely learn from the experience. Usually, people leave negative reviews in response to a failure in communication. If you had managed to address the customer’s concerns, chances are high that they wouldn’t have left a bad review.
You need, in any case, to go through your brand’s bad reviews to learn more about what people have been saying. Maybe they have been saying service is shoddy. Maybe they have been complaining about a particular individual at your business.
Whatever their reasons for complaining, those are things that you can address. Maybe you can have your staff go for retraining. Or you can offer alternative shipping methods if the complaint was about late delivery. Or maybe you can look at other ways of improving your business as a whole. In this regard, negative reviews are not all that bad.
Negative reviews provide useful information to your customers
From the point of view of the customer, negative reviews are great because they help in the making of informed purchasing decisions. Instead of blindly buying from a company, people are able to see exactly what they are getting themselves into.
That’s a good thing if you are a business. It means you will have fewer complaints and fewer returns. It tones down people’s expectations. They come to you knowing exactly what they are getting themselves into. They won’t arrive with impossible to meet expectations.
It’s worth noting that bad reviews are usually triggered by the failure of service to meet expectation. Simply put, people have rather lofty ideas about what they are going to get from you.
So, by reading a few bad reviews from others who had similar expectations, they get to understand what you have to offer. In this regard, bad reviews help complete the picture as far as your business and the customer’s expectation are concerned.
Negative reviews help the customer choose the right product
This point is related to the one that we have just made. Negative reviews are useful in helping your customers choose the right product. If you go to Amazon, you will understand what we are talking about.
Go through the reviews and you will get people blasting a product for not working with this particular gadget or in this particular way as expected. So, others reading these reviews will know what they are buying.
Your response to negative reviews helps you build trust
We have already noted that negative reviews are not that bad because they are a key element in helping brands build trust. Reinforcing this trust are the responses that you give to any adverse feedback. In this regard, negative reviews are a chance for you to explain yourself.
By any means you should avoid having a slugging match with your customer. Otherwise you are going to trend across the internet in a negative way.
What you need to do if you get a negative review on Yelp, as an example, is to go there to explain how you have addressed the issue. People expect this. If you are seen to be responsive, others will not hesitate to buy from you.
Any mention of your business boosts your SEO
So, does this mean bad publicity is good? In this case, it turns out that that’s actually true. Even when you get negative mentions across the internet, Google does not see the negative bit. All that Google sees are mentions of your brand, and in that regard, the more the merrier.
Negative reviews thus have the effect of boosting your SEO. That’s important, considering the fact that online reviews actually contribute a lot of juice to your ranking as a brand. We are not saying businesses should go out of their way to get negative reviews. But you shouldn’t cry when you get them.
Summing up
We are going to close this article by outlining the importance of online reviews. Today, over 94% of people will first consult them before making a purchase. Reviews also contribute to Google Seller Ratings.
As a business, it’s inevitable that you are going to get negative reviews, no matter how good you may actually be on the ground.
How you respond to this negative feedback is crucial. Disputing reviews is difficult, but it’s a good idea if the review has been left by someone unrelated to your business at all.
Businesses also need to learn to respond to bad reviews in ways that turns them positive. You should not necessarily look at negative reviews as bad, though they can be devastating to a business if not handled correctly.
Rather, you should see them as an opportunity to give your side of the story, which is what people out there are looking for. A few bad reviews are also good since they help convince people that you have not bought reviews to game the system.
