Business is not only excellent feedback and love emails from clients. As business owners, we often face a lot of criticism, with and without reason. When the words are kind, that’s great, but when they mean to harm you, it is sad as we tend to take them personally. But here is the catch. In online world people often decide to buy or not to buy on account of feedback. Not to mention, that the public opinion of your buyers is also a core element of the brand.
So let me teach you how to sell using your reply to negative comments.
As people put attention on them, they also read your replies. When you show yourself as a lovely, funny and a very responsible person, it makes people believe that you brand cares!
My example is from the food industry. A friend of mine has a delivery kitchen restaurant. 50% of orders come via an app/site which hosts all restaurants in Delhi; it’s a portal. Reviews are a critical part of this portal and impact people’s decision to buy. My friend usually asks me to check this reviews and answer them. Though majority of reviews are excellent. Some users give terrible feedback.
So my rules on answering to negative comments are like this:
- Always answer all reviews, people value attention and see that you care. If you show up when the biz is in trouble, clients believe in your leadership, and they are ready to follow and to buy, even though they have read the negative feedback. All you need to do is to be attentive, responsible and respectful, and find the solution. Also, be polite, even if the comment is bad.
- Everyone read negative reviews and your replies! Sell through it. Find a unique solution which shows that you care and can deal with a bad situation. Propose alternative products to find the solution, describe the great qualities of the products so that the other readers will see that you are an expert and find more about other products which have not been criticized.
- If the review is just wrong without any reason (some people are evil), make them suffer. Example: “Well, a majority of our clients love our food, and we care about the needs and tastes of our tribe, who have a sophisticated taste and exquisite love for brilliant dishes. But, let’s be honest, we can’t please all.”
- Make sure you show that an action was taken. Example: “Thank you for your feedback, we just fired a person who cooked it for you, we are sorry for the inconvenience.” That gives you two results. The readers think that you are serious. And the offender feels guilty because he just got another person fired. That means that the level of his anger comes down.
Conclusion — your answers for a negative feedback sells better than the paid advertising, so do it wisely.
Originally published at brandplusphoto.com on Nov 6, 2016.
Originally published at medium.com