You Can’t Please Everyone: Dealing with Online Negative Comments

It’s tough business being your own boss, and tougher still dealing with criticism. In today’s digital age, unfortunately, it’s easy for unhappy customers to let their displeasure be known to the general public with little to no effort thanks to online reviews.

You probably already know that negative comments can hurt your online reputation and thereby hurt your business, but you likewise probably don’t know how to deal with them. What exactly is the protocol for handling a negative review, or worse still an influx of them? There’s no official guide on dealing with negative feedback, but there are a few recommendations from Entrepreneur.com and others that should help you through it.

1. Don’t come up swinging. While your first instinct will be to defend yourself and your business, particularly against more scathing comments, there’s almost always something to be learned—even if it’s just that some people are impossible to please.
2. Consider whether or not the feedback being provided poses valid points; is the customer upset by what they feel are poor business practices, or is it something more personal? Does one of your employees need to be confronted? Make sure you understand the entire situation.
3. If the entire situation isn’t provided in the comment, you can use your first response to ask for further clarification in order to properly address the issue. By stepping up prepared to make up for any mistakes that may have been made, you can win trust even from unhappy customers.
4. While you’ll want to take a little time to make sure you’ve cooled off before responding, you definitely want to respond. Neglecting to join the conversation of a negative comment will never work in your favor.
5. Your response should be succinct, professional and apologetic. Even if you’re just offering an apology for a service you never advertised not being available (which is a more common complaint than you might think), the customer needs to feel like they’ve been heard.

It’s important to remain professional, as getting into an argument with a customer in a public forum—such as 99 percent of the internet—can lead to business disaster. Consider the now infamous Amy’s Baking Company, featured on an episode of Kitchen Nightmares in 2013, which serves as a stark example of what to avoid when dealing with negative feedback. As a business owner your first instinct will always be to defend yourself, but as a professional it’s your job to take criticism as it comes, at least as long as it’s valid. There are of course plenty of people who write false reviews and make fraudulent complaints, but dealing with them is an issue for another time.

For now, remember that a great deal of criticism is designed to be constructive, enabling you to discover issues of which you may not have been aware before the complaint was made. Take it as an opportunity to make your business better for all your customers, happy or not.

If your frustrated with negative comments being left online about your business, contact Van Horn Law Group, as we can be a resource to help you through  this situation.