Regardless of how much effort you put into maintaining a great working relationship with your client base, you can’t keep everyone happy all of the time. Even the most professional businesses receive negative feedback from time-to -time. Common issues that arise include staff miscommunication, defective products or services, or an inability to deliver what clients need in a specific timeframe. These are all concerns that businesses face daily.

You’ll probably never have to deal with a customer complaint like this one. It relates to a credit card company supervisor, whose staff member offended a woman who’d called to have her father’s credit card cancelled after he’d died. The staff member in question asked to speak to her father in order to verify the request, to which she replied dryly, “only if you’ve got a connection with heaven!” Hopefully your staff members can avoid a situation like this! But, every now and then, you will come across a customer who is hard to appease.

Unfortunately, one of the downsides of living in a digital age is clients can air their grievances as passively aggressively as they like, through online marketing channels, social media and many other platforms. It’s also been revealed people will more likely leave a bad review on social media than a positive one.  Which is why it’s important to know how to reply to these, without venting and calling them every rude name you learnt in the schoolyard; because sadly, the general public and your clients often read reviews before purchasing your products.

Here are some tips on how to respond to a bad review that’s appeared either on your digital marketing or social media channels. If you don’t have the time to manage your social media or digital marketing correspondence, invest in a digital expert to do this for you.

#1 WAIT UNTIL YOU’VE COOLED DOWN

Never respond to a bad review when you’re angry or in a bad headspace, because it’s more likely you’ll lose it and go all Kanye West on Taylor Swift at the 2009 MTV Music Awards!  Instead, wait until you’re feeling more emotionally balanced to plead your case.

#2 TURN A BAD REVIEW INTO A POSITIVE MARKETING OPPORTUNITY

Rather than posting an angry rant in response to a bad review, if you are the bigger person and plead your case fairly, most readers will not pass judgement until they’ve read your side of the story too. So take your time and do it well. By posting a well thought out reply, you can turn it into a positive marketing opportunity!

#3 DONT BE SCARED OF SAYING SORRY

If someone’s gone to the effort of posting a bad review about your business, you’re not going to be able to convince them they were wrong. By replying to the review saying you’re sorry and taking responsibility for what has happened, those reading the bad review and your response will respect you for it.

#4 GET OVER IT!

Focus on moving on and if there’s anything you can do to rectify the problem reoccurring, ensure you do this! Nobody likes dealing with bad press but unfortunately it’s a fact of life, so don’t get hung up on it!

Need some help managing your social media or digital marketing posts? Call the experts at Ad On Digital today on (07) 5586 1412. Have a query? Send an email and the team will respond as soon as they’re free!