Five ways to ensure a 1-star reputation
Are you tired of having a 5-star online review profile? Want to spice things up a bit, the next time a customer has a complaint? These five tactics are a foolproof strategy for ensuring your online review rating bottoms out to 1-star!
1. Ignore your customer
Most customers complain online because they felt as though you didn’t care about their experience. Perhaps a staff member was apathetic, an email unanswered, or no one bothered to reply to their tweet. When a customer determines that you’re not interested in resolving their complaint they become motivated by revengeful altruism. They want to warn others about your bad service and perhaps stick it to you at the same time.
2. Call them a liar
Just because your version of the events doesn’t quite match theirs, doesn’t mean you can reply to their online review with accusations of them being a liar. Once you accuse someone of lying, it’s hard to take that back. It also looks really bad on you, if proof is then provided to back their side of the events. Always give your customer the benefit of the doubt until you know for sure that you are 100% correct. Even then, don’t back them into a corner. Point out the discrepancies, but continue to demonstrate that you wish to find resolution with them.
3. Be stubborn
I get it. You don’t want to just refund their money the moment they ask for it, but once you’ve verified their complaint, don’t continue to dig in your heels. The faster you apologize, the quicker your reputation will recover from this incident.
4. Threaten them
No really, it always works out well when you threaten to beat up a customer or sue them for breaking your terms and conditions by posting a negative review. Not! Threatening a reviewer will, 99% of the time, make you look like a bully. If you are facing certain defamation then you certainly have the right to litigate, but your first step should always be to try and resolve the issue without getting the attorneys involved. In these situations a polite, but sternly written, letter explaining why the review is defamatory and why you will have to protect your reputation if it continues to remain posted, works better than a cease and desist letter from your lawyer.
5. Don’t learn from their review
A negative review is an opportunity to learn. It’s an opportunity to do better next time. In the meantime, let your unhappy customer know that you care, that you’ll make it right, while also sending a message to others that you won’t leave them high and dry, should they have a bad experience with your business.
The truth is, an unhappy customer is highly likely to complain about you on social media first, before heading to Yelp, Angie’s List, Tripadvisor or any other review site. With Trackur, we’ll alert you to an unhappy customer in plenty of time for you to make lemonade out of lemons! Get your free trial today!
