It’s hard to see bad online reviews of you or your salon but don’t fret, there are ways to respond and not let them affect you or your business. Small business owners should always keep an eye on their online presence. It’s important to Google your salon or frequent review sites like Yelp or even Facebook for negative reviews. Look often so you can respond in a timely manner and hopefully fix any negative reviews. It may be instinctive to do everything you can to get it deleted but this isn’t going to help anything. The best thing you can do is respond in a mature, professional manner.
What to do About Negative Online Reviews
- Respond to bad online reviews. Instead of ignoring, respond. The internet is as public as it gets so show people that you are willing to fix or respond to a complaint. Do it in a friendly, non-argumentative way. Try your best to fix whatever that customer is mad about and try to regain them as a client.
- If you come across a particularly rude and belligerent review, contact that person privately so it didn’t turn into that client writing even more negative reviews. Or have the abusive online review removed by the site. Most review sites have guidelines and rules for flagging a review.
- You know who your loyal clients are. Encourage them to write positive reviews on Yelp or on your Facebook page. This will cause the negative reviews to not stand out too much and, make you feel good!
- A big no-no is telling the reviewer that they are wrong. That will just make it much worse! Even if you think they are wrong! Also, do not argue.
- Being a small business owner, positive and sometimes negative reviews just come with the territory. But, don’t go so far as to pay people for positive reviews. Even though many companies do that now, some of these more advanced online review sites have ways of finding out and warning others if it’s a paid review.