Negative reviews are a frequent pain of business. People may not be satisfied with the quality of the product or the fact that its functions differ from those stated. The same applies to services — for example, expectations from an educational course may not be met.
Sometimes other, not the most obvious reasons cause negativity. So, at the first stages of the company's development, employees may simply not be able to cope with the flow of applications with a rapid increase in their number. As a result, customers will have to wait a long time, and they will obviously not be happy about it. And here it's about the immaturity of business processes or the difficulties in organizing customer service.
Often, all this is connected with some internal issues of the company: personnel changes, restructuring of the management system, and so on.
For example, due to its growth, some processes and departments may need to be reorganized. And the closer this department is to working directly with clients, the more likely it is that people will notice the changes.
For example, the company may change the format of customer support. Suppose you have introduced depersonalized feedback collection and are now collecting it using a chatbot. And before that, a real person interacted with people. The first reaction of some customers will be disappointment from communicating with the robot. Innovations can be so unusual that they will cause negativity, which will then spill over into the Network.
It is important to note that negative reviews have an expiration date. For example, an unpleasant situation occurred when the company was at a different stage of development. Now this drawback has already been eliminated. And in this case, it is worth responding adequately to the negative and not wasting efforts.
The fact is that some review sites ask you to pay for the removal of reviews. However, we do not think it is worth doing this. It is better to work for results and reputation today in order to minimize the number of unpleasant situations and negative reviews.
Research Marketing Research Reviews and Recommendations in e‑commerce: AliExpress Russia and Data Insight research / Data Insight shows that 9 out of 10 online shoppers actively study reviews before making a purchase. This is especially important when it comes to expensive products or services, the quality of which is difficult to assess personally.
For example, it's easy to imagine how an iron should be ironed or what functions a new phone should have. But it is much more difficult to understand how the career track has changed after passing the educational course or how health has improved after a fitness marathon. And then the reviews come to the rescue.
We regularly conduct internal research and monitor the market. And we can conclude that negative reviews can become a serious obstacle to a successful sale. Negativity on the Web can significantly reduce trust in a brand or product, and therefore it definitely should not be ignored.
And it's even more a bad idea to snap at those who wrote reviews.
Often a spark can be extinguished in the bud by simply responding adequately to a claim. And if this did not happen in time, a person can go further, to other responses, and significantly damage the reputation of the company. So do not let everything take its course — communicate with people, especially with dissatisfied ones.
In addition, negative reviews provide valuable feedback about brand weaknesses, maintenance problems, or the manufacturing process. Often, customers can discover things that employees and management do not see. Therefore, any company should actively work with them.
In order not to miss a single negative feedback, we use the Brand Analytics tool. It helps to monitor the information field. In addition, we check the key sites with reviews on a weekly basis so as not to miss anything important.
We attach great importance to responding to all negative feedback and try to establish direct contact with customers to discuss the incident in more detail. We always listen and try to find solutions to the situation or compensation for damage.
At the same time, some reviews turn out to be fake, and after verification we refute them. That is, we are preparing a detailed answer, confirmed by the facts. Sometimes we contact the support service of the review sites, also reinforcing the message with proofs.
This strategy allows us to maintain customer trust.
We strive to use negative feedback as a tool to improve our processes and service levels.
Here's what you should definitely do:
We are aware that reviews are an important tool to attract new customers and create a positive reputation for the company. Therefore, we encourage our students to leave feedback at several stages of the course at once.
At a certain point, we noticed that most of the good reviews remain inside our Get Course platform, and decided to fix this situation. To do this, we have launched mailing lists offering useful materials or bonuses for feedback.
In this way, we manage to motivate students to share their impressions of our company on public platforms.
Here's what we can advise you to do:
But what you definitely shouldn't do:
Dealing with negative reviews remains an important part of our customer service team's work. This helps us on the way to improving all our processes and services. We value every opinion and always respond to any feedback from our students. Thanks to this approach, we build a reliable and trusting relationship with customers and do not stop developing for a moment.
