No one likes to receive bad reviews or negative feedback from customers. Often, business owners may feel these are personal attacks or coming from a competitor trying to start trouble.
As a result, rather than patiently responding with an open mind, some businesses lash out and become defensive. Although this reaction may feel justified in the moment, the only thing you’re doing is adding fuel to the fire — and making the customer angrier.
If you want to handle a negative review tactfully and efficiently, try one of these strategies recommended by the members of the Young Entrepreneur Council.
15 Smart Strategies for Handling Negative Customer Reviews
- Take it seriously.
- Participate and respond.
- Call the reviewer on the phone.
- Assess the review’s importance.
- Make things right.
- Communicate with ease, understanding and respect.
- Evaluate the critique.
- Document and revisit.
- Respond with love.
- Hold yourself accountable.
- Take their feedback to heart.
- Avoid getting defensive or arguing.
- Solve the issue quickly.
- Look into the review platform.
- Own up to it.
1. Take It Seriously
You may find there are at least 10 other customers who experienced the same issue but never mentioned it. Investigate the circumstances around what may have gone wrong to prevent future reoccurrences. If possible, contact the customer to see if the issue has been or can be resolved. Many times, if you attempt to right a wrong, the customer will update their review to a more positive one. —Ephraim Arnstein, Bitbean
2. Participate and Respond
If you don’t participate, your customers are having the conversation about you behind your back. Your voice and perspective are important to establish your business as one that cares and listens to customers. Don’t just react or respond privately. Let the community online know the steps you are taking to improve. It shows you care. —Jeff Keenan, LeadsRx
3. Call the Reviewer on the Phone
Upon seeing a bad review, I immediately call the reviewer. Voice-to-voice interaction is the key in this instance so that no inflection can be misinterpreted over text. The first thing I do is thank them profusely for their feedback, because if I don’t know about an issue, then I can’t remedy it. I ask them to tell me the story about what happened, see if I can offer an explanation and then offer any potential solutions. —Avery Carl, The Short Term Shop
4. Asses the Review’s Importance
Negative reviews vary. Some of them are obviously unfair and can be ignored, or you can approach the reviewer with an apology. Some are blatantly misinformed and can lead to your business developing a bad brand image. In this case, you need to address the review with a fleshed out reply. In either case, the first thing you should do is assess how important the review is before doing anything. —Syed Balkhi, WPBeginner
5. Make Things Right
I reach out to the customer and simply make things right. I kid you not, some of my strongest relationships with customers began due to a mistake on my part. When customers see you’re acting to make things right in good faith, don’t be surprised if they remove their reviews or write glowing follow-ups! —Tyler Bray, TK Trailer Parts
6. Communicate With Ease, Understanding and Respect
A standard best practice for handling negative reviews is to make all communication easy, understanding and respectful. Overreacting and abusing a reviewer, despite whatever else you do right, plants negative thoughts in your other prospects’ minds. The key to handling these situations is to stay calm, agree with the angry customer and resolve the issue without overstepping boundaries. —Kelly Richardson, Infobrandz
7. Evaluate the Critique
Criticism, whether negative or positive, is an opportunity to grow and improve in your work. You should evaluate whichever aspects of your business were criticized; there may be a flaw that needs to be changed to offer a better service or product. If you diagnose the problem and find no issues, don’t bother — not every bad review reflects reality. —Kevin Leyes, Leyes Media & VVS, by Leyes Empire
8. Document and Revisit
You can’t stop all negative reviews forever. You can, however, fine-tune your product and website over time to minimize them. When a complaint comes in, I make sure to document it right away. Every month, my team and I go through the complaints and look for common problems that we can resolve with our developers or design team. —John Brackett, Smash Balloon LLC
9. Respond With Love
Negative feedback can come from friends or frenemies. You should determine if the feedback is from a friend who is willing to offer a hand to help you grow or a frenemy lashing out at you with hate. The negative review is not always a negative response. It could actually be a person who loves your brand and has something to offer to make it better. If it’s just hate, respond with love instead. —Daisy Jing, Banish
10. Hold Yourself Accountable
Ask yourself if the review is right. You can only know by taking their complaint seriously. Then, respond appropriately. If you can get past the public sting of a negative review, you can redeem yourself publicly as well. Try to understand that the less-than-satisfied customer’s claim is an opportunity to improve the product or service. Attend to them and improve. People appreciate honesty and accountability. —Samuel Thimothy, OneIMS
11. Take Their Feedback to Heart
Don’t freak out. Bad reviews can be good for your business. Beyond contacting the customer to remedy the situation, take their feedback to heart. Use their criticism to make your business better. Evaluate your product or service, and prepare a public case study about the changes you’ve made. Be transparent and show your customers that you care. This will turn negative reviews into positive stories. —Shaun Conrad, Guitar Repair Bench Online Lessons
12. Avoid Getting Defensive or Arguing
Look closely at what the reviewer is saying to find out if they’re pointing out something you need to address. You have to avoid any desire to be defensive and argue with the person. If the reviewer has a legitimate grievance, you should do whatever you can to set things right. If they’re pointing out a widespread problem, you know it’s something that needs to be changed. —Kalin Kassabov, ProTexting
13. Solve the Issue Quickly
The best way to handle a negative review is to find a solution quickly. Don’t let a customer wait too long, or there’s a very good chance they won’t come back to your website. Address the issue and offer a tangible solution that shows them that you’re committed to solving their problems and appreciate their business. —John Turner, SeedProd LLC
14. Look Into the Review Platform
Find out if the platform where they posted the review is legitimate. How do they verify the review is from a valid customer? Did they check the identity? We’ve had clients who get attacked by their competitors regularly because some platforms don’t protect against this type of attack. If that happens, you can request your data be removed from their website permanently. —Terry Tateossian, Socialfix Media
15. Own Up to It
Unless the claims are outrageously false, simply follow up by apologizing. In your apology, mention that this goes against your customer care policy and that you’re committed to doing better next time they do business with you. The worst thing you can do is sweep complaints under the rug or provoke a fight. —Amine Rahal, IronMonk Solutions
