By now you do know that customer reviews are important and essential to people decisions. To how they will see your brand and company. But the questions is… Do you know how to respond to reviews? How to talk to your customers and how to best communicate with them...
Always respond to reviews!
And this is the most basic and most important rule you need to remember. From this point on things do get a bit more complicated where PR, customer relations and in general how you should communicate with your customers. For example, common advice is “do not get personal” with your customers. But it is not true. It all depends on your product/service and who your customer base is. It is quite clear we think that you will use different approach to teenager and to an adult. Also a lot will depend on your actual product and service. However, as mentioned above, you should reply and acknowledge all reviews. And here is why.
Respond to bad reviews
If you won’t respond to such reviews you will loose on few different levels. First of all you may well loose a customer who for some reason is unhappy with your product. Here you should keep your responses short, sweet and never emotional. We know people can be very annoying, but if you need a thick skin in order to serve your company best. Always try to find out if there isn’t a bit of truth in what customer is saying. Always be polite and suggest, but don’t force it, that further communications should be exchanged in “private mode” because for example personal details will be needed to sort out problem. Never forget about such person and spend as much time exchanging thoughts as needed.
Your visible response to such bad reviews is very important as it shows you care both about your customers and your business. It shows you are involved and that your customers and their satisfaction matters to you. We are all humans after all and we all realize at some levels that sometimes things go wrong. But when that happens you do want to be a customer of a company that is not indifferent to what you think. So although it may hurt sometimes, respond to reviews, even bad ones!
Respond to good reviews – yes, to those as well.
If you thought that with good reviews you do not have to do anything we got some “bad” news for you. In general, although yet again it is not a rule, in most cases the “loudest” customers are the unhappy ones. After all if everything is fine why would you bother time in order to prize a company. This is precisely one of the reasons you should respond to such reviews. With a simple “thank you” you can make your happy customer even happier. And with modern social media channels a word of mouth can be a better advertisement than anything else. If someone gave you their own, private time they definitely deserve your response. Be modest, be nice and do not try to oversell customer.
Remember, if you offer something in exchange you risk that with time you’ll get plenty of such reviews. You will have to give others the same deal if you want to keep peace. Also, you also risk getting false reviews instead of honest ones. So yes, respond to reviews – good ones too. And as we said before, reviews create content. Respond to reviews, communicate with your customers and you’ll get more of them – we promise!
