Unfortunately, negative reviews are inevitable
If you’ve been in business for any length of time, you’ve likely gotten some negative customer reviews. This is especially true if you have a public-facing retail store, bar, restaurant, coffee shop or other type of brick and mortar business that enables customers to leave reviews on Yelp, Trip Advisor, Google, Facebook or other sites. After all, people are people and they’ll find anything to critcize if you let them.
Don’t believe me? Take the Great Wall of China– arguably one of the most amazing achievements in the history of mankind and…check out the plethora of negative reviews it has received on Google.
As the old saying goes, “You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all the people all of the time.” And, when it comes to your business and reviews, that can be a problem.
Why? Because research shows that up to 67% of consumers are influenced by online reviews. Companies can potentially lose as much as 22 percent of their customers with just a single bad review. And, if users uncover three negative reviews in their Google searches, a business can lose up to 59% of its customer base!
Other studies paint a similarly alarming picture when analyzing the impact of negative reviews. According to Lee Resource Inc., it takes 12 positive customer service experiences to make up for each negative one. With the broad exposure that one negative review has on the Internet, it’s not a stretch to conclude that it would take more than 12 positive experiences to make up for a well-written negative complaint from an angry customer.
The problem with negative reviews is compounded by the fact that most people skim and don’t take the time to read the details in complaints or reviews to determine if they are reasonable. They see those damning one or two stars show up in your profile, whether they’re real or fake, fair or unfair…and it costs you customers.
So why do people voice their complaints online and give negative reviews the first place? A study conducted by RightNow uncovered some interesting insights. The study revealed that 85% of customers wanted to warn others about the disadvantages of doing business with the company, while 66% wanted to discourage others from even doing business with them. 55% reported that they just wanted to vent their frustration, while 24% wanted to see if the company would take action and try to right the perceived wrong that they experienced.
In today’s environment where anyone can jump online and rate your business, it’s more important than ever to take customer service seriously. You want to not just meet their expectations, but exceed them during their entire on premise experience. You need to listen to their feedback, address their concerns and get ahead of small problems before they turn into huge issues.
At Gisteo, we recently did an explainer video production for SentimentSnap– a company that enables customers to give private feedback so businesses can improve performance and maybe just get ahead of those nasty negative reviews. Before going on, let’s take a look at our 90 second explainer for SentimentSnap:
OK, so in the interest of full disclosure, yours truly is also the Co-Founder of SentimentSnap so I’m even more excited than normal to share this Gisteo production here on our blog 🙂
SentimentSnap can help
SentimentSnap gives your customers a voice and the ability to give your business private feedback about the job you’re doing. You choose your own customized question like “How did we do today?” and customers submit their feedback in seconds. Our solution lets customers scan a QR and provide honest, 100% private feedback in just a few taps on their phone – helping your business quickly identify issues and pain points in the customer experience. We give business owners access to a dashboard to view results in real-time, analyze trends, read comments, follow up with customers who opted to leave their contact information and more.
Can SentimentSnap eliminate your negative reviews altogether? No, of course not. Just as even the Great Wall of China seems to have its share of naysayers, we can’t guarantee that customers won’t air their dirty laundry on public review sites or shame you with a one-star bomb.
But, just like the Great Wall was built as line of defense to protect ancient Chinese dynasties from attacks, SentimentSnap can be your first line of defense against the modern day onslaught of cruel reviews that threaten to destroy your business!
Remember that 55% of people in the study who reported that they just wanted to vent their frustration? They can do just that in seconds with SentimentSnap. Or how about the 24% who wanted to see if the company would take action and try to right the perceived wrong that they experienced? SentimentSnap enables your customers to leave a follow-up email so you can personally reach out to a frustrated customer and deal with their grievance, on your terms.
More importantly, SentimentSnap sends the right message to your customers. True fact: the Great Wall was also used as a hub for cultural exchanges and a tool to promote national integration. SentimentSnap can help integrate customer feedback into your business culture and bridge the gap between the experience you’re delivering and your customers’ expectations. When customers are prompted to give feedback, they will know you care about what they think…and that alone can give you an edge in the competitive world of retail and hospitality.
SentimentSnap is currently in beta testing so contact us if you’d like to set up a completely free trial!
