What to do with the negative comments your company receives online?
What to do with the negative comments your company receives online is a very frequent question. When we consult with business owners and managers, besides how to get new customers, this is the most asked topic. The answer depends on several things, one of them is, if the comment is real or not. This is extremely important, because there are ignorant and unethical people who think that making negative comments on their competitor’s pages is a good marketing strategy. Others make comments that have nothing to do with the company or only rate the company without leaving any comment or reason. However, these people generally hold this position because of their lack of knowledge about how digital marketing works today.
Identifiy real and fake comments about your company online
Therefore, the first step when identifying negative comments on the Internet for your business is to determine whether they are real or unsubstantiated. This allows appropriate decisions to be made about them. The second step, once identified, is to determine the author of the comment. It is important to take action in this regard regardless of whether the comment is real or false, since any comment impacts the reputation of the company.
If the comment is real, it is important to determine what situation produced this type of comment. This is done by searching internally for the relationship between the company and the author of the comment. That is, search internal databases, video cameras and/or consulting employees on the interaction they may have had with the author of the comment. If this internal consultation does not provide information in this regard, it is important to try to obtain the information directly from the author of the comment.
Knowing the reason for that comment is extremely important and should be a priority. This information allows decisions to be made to improve and/or correct customer service problems that may affect the long term success of the company. To obtain the information from the author of the comment, it is important to have a proactive and respectful attitude, before making contact with the author.
How to deal with real customer negative online comments
The best way to deal with the author of the comment is to respond directly to the comment, in a respectful tone, requesting that the author contact the manager or owner of the company. This contact should be friendly, so that the author of the comment feels that there is a real interest in solving the situation. This can be done by offering a phone number and name of the person in charge of solving the situation.
Another option is to provide an email address where they can write the reasons or where direct communication with the author can be established. It is NOT recommended to publish phone numbers or emails that are different from those of the company, in the response to comments,.
Once this request is written, it is prudent to wait a term no longer than one week, to receive a response. If a response to this request is not received within the specified time, it is important to edit that response to the comment. If a response has been received, it is important to solve the situation, apologize and invite the author to use the service again or visit the business to show how the situation has been resolved. In some cases it is prudent to offer a discount or special offer to this user and request a modification of their comment, after they have verified the improvement in service.
What to do with fake negative comments about your company?
If the comment is determined to be unreal or when the qualifier did not write a comment. There are two actions that can be performed. The first is to determine its author and track other comments or ratings they have made to other businesses. Generally when doing this, in most cases, one realizes that this person is part of or related to the competition or someone with whom there isn’t a good relationship. This could be an issue if it involves an unhappy former or present employee, as well as, personal relationship issues. In other cases, they are false profiles that have been created to carry out this type of actions.
The first thing you can do if it is determined to be a fake profile, is to report it to Google or the social network where the comment was written, as a misplaced comment. In the second case, the comment must be reported to Google or the social network where it is published, as SPAM content or as a conflicting comment due to the author’s commercial or malicious interests. In the latter case, if the author has a business registered in Google search engines or in the same social network, it is good to publicize this relationship.
In some cases, when the behavior is repetitive, Google and platforms like Facebook take sanctioning actions against these people, such as deleting their company’s information from its directory.
We hope this article can be of help to everyone and request you share it with people who own businesses. What to do with the negative comments your company receives online is one of the most important things for any company or independent entrepreneur to know. If you need help with this issue, reputation management or everything related to attracting customers for your local business, contact us.
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