Reviews have always been vital to businesses.

Before the digital age, reviews often came from your friends and neighbors, who shared purchases and experiences with you so that you could visit that business yourself. Now, thanks to the internet, you can read reviews from anyone who visits a business and not have to rely solely on the reviews of your friends. Businesses also have the opportunity to respond to reviews, both good and bad, which is not something they could enjoy before reviews went digital.

Why You Should Respond to Reviews

When someone takes the time to write a review, they want to share their experience with any prospective customers. By taking the time to respond to them, it shows that you care about what they had to say. Many companies do not respond to reviews, and if they do, it is usually the negative reviews, not the positive ones, to which they respond. You are setting yourself apart from your competitors and gaining trust from new customers by choosing to respond to all reviews.

When you write a response, you are not just writing to that person, but to every potential customer out there, and showing them how you handle situations, both good and bad, which can have a lot of sway in how people view your brand.

If a positive review is highly detailed, you should especially take the time to respond to it, and responding to positive reviews can be fun. When responding, make sure you are authentic and enthusiastic and that you do not respond to every review in the same way. If you have a template for responding to reviews, throw it out; using a standard template for reviews can give customers the impression that your company is lazy and have a worse impact on prospective customers than not answering at all.

Responding to Negative Reviews

While responding to positive reviews can be fun, it is not always fun to respond to negative ones, but it is important that you do so. These tips can help you navigate your responses.

Remain Calm

You are probably upset after reading a negative review, and that is entirely understandable, but it is essential to approach these reviews calmly. Whether the review was harsh, condescending, or personal, you are most likely upset and may feel that the review is unfair. Take a moment to calm down after reading the review before you respond to it. If any of your upset mood leaks into your response, it can be looked at negatively by readers.

Make a Plan

While it is not recommended to use and reuse templates when responding to negative reviews, you can come up with some standard replies in advance and make sure only to use them once. If you do this, be careful to avoid using the same one multiple times. You will still need to adapt your response to the situation, but this can help you get over the “where do I begin” hurdle and help you write calmly and neutrally.

Own the Problem

If you have a negative review, it is because someone had a negative experience with your business. The person might be complaining that they did not like the color of your drapes or the taste of your food, or that an employee was rude or refused to accept an expired coupon. No matter how big or small the complaint is, you need to begin any response to a negative review by apologizing, even if it is not entirely the fault of you or your business.

If the complaint is because something went wrong on your end, own up to the mistake and apologize for it. If the customer did not receive something they ordered because it was forgotten, look into it. By simply admitting the mistake, apologizing, and trying to fix the problem, you can show that your company is run by a cool-headed individual who wants to make it right. Offer them something, like a free dessert or a small discount. Everyone makes mistakes; it is how you handle the aftermath that matters. Admit the mistake, apologize, offer to make it right — this is the formula for helping turn a negative experience into a positive one.

Keep it Short and Sweet

Try to keep your responses short and sweet. The customer is not going to read a 1,000-word response from you; they will get bored and stop reading by the third paragraph. Additionally, avoid getting trapped in a long discussion with the customer. Reply once for sure, twice if necessary, but do not keep going beyond that. Prospective customers do not want to read a huge discussion between you and an unhappy customer, and having a lengthy back and forth like this can reflect poorly on your business.

If the customer really wants an in-depth discussion with you about their experience, take the conversation offline. Invite them to come back to your business so you can sit down and talk and work on finding a resolution together.

Proofread Before Sending

Always have someone proofread your response for you before you send it. This allows you to get a second opinion to ensure you did not get angry at the customer or start to ramble in your apology. Plus, you do not want to put something on the internet that is full of typos and grammatical errors; that can make you look bad to prospective customers.

Final Thoughts

While you may not want to spend a ton of time talking to people who left bad reviews on your site, it is important to do so. Sometimes, just showing a customer you care enough to try to make things right is enough to make them willing to return to your business. Nobody wants to read negative reviews about their business, but clearing the air is essential. Sometimes, if you truly clear the air with an unhappy customer, you can persuade them to change or remove a negative review; but you must ensure the air is cleared and you have resolved the issue to their satisfaction first.