By Don Silver
Everyone’s a critic.
And with consumer review websites such as Yelp or Ripoff Report, your business is fair game for a harmful review. Smart business owners and managers watch for unhappy customers and respond in ways that turn a negative into a positive.
Yelp provides online searches for local businesses and allows customers to post reviews and rate a business on a scale of zero to five. The public comments can be good for your business. Harvard Business Review says that a one-star improvement in your Yelp rating can increase your revenue five to nine percent.
Downbeat comments are also inevitable. Someone is going to have a bad experience or be the wrong customer for your business. How you react to a negative review says a lot about you and your business. The right reaction can have a big impact on how potential customers view you.
Ripoff Report is different. It’s exclusively for those with a gripe. The site lets the consumers “File a Report” and “Update a Report.” It lets the business respond, as well.
What to do — and what not to do? First, regularly monitor the Internet (and social media) by using free services like Google Alerts and more robust paid services. Then, create accounts on all major review sites so you have access and the ability to respond.
Here are some tips to follow for reacting to consumer reviews:
• Respect opinions. Customers are entitled to their points of view. They paid their money and have the right to speak their minds. Don’t ridicule reviewers for bad spelling or grammar. The errors will be obvious to readers.
• Think before you respond. A bad review injures your ego. The instinctive reaction is to strike back with a nasty online response. Bad move. You seem immature and your business looks unprofessional.
• Keep it simple. Thank each reviewer publicly for his or her business and say that the input will be — or has already been — used to make constructive changes.