What To Say When You Reply To Customer Feedback

It happens even to the best in the market, and if it hasn’t happened to you yet, it could happen sometime in the future. Negative reviews are not meant to drag your business down. However, how you handle and reply to customer feedback can determine how protective buyers view your business.

ReviewTrackers did a study in which 94% of the persons that were surveyed claimed that they had avoided businesses that had negative reviews. But all is not lost, since a different study conducted by BrightLocal found that 96% of the people involved in the study were always keen on reading how businesses responded to negative reviews.

That’s not where it all ends. Out of the total number of people who participated in the study conducted by ReviewTrackers, 45% were willing to try businesses that responded well to negative reviews. What does this information mean for your business?

The take-home message is that there are lots of benefits associated with responding to online reviews, whether negative or positive. But you should not just respond to customer feedback. You ought to know exactly what you need to say and most importantly, what you should never say.

Let’s dive deeper and have a look at what you should say when responding to different types of customer feedback:

Positive Feedback

You might think that you don’t have to respond to positive reviews since they speak for themselves. The reality, however, is that responding to such reviews makes it possible to amplify the positive message in the review.

In addition to thanking the customer for their continued support, you can present them with a unique offer such as

“Remind us of this review next time you drop by, and we shall give you include you in our customer ambassador program so that you can get to enjoy special offers just for you :)”

Negative Feedback

If you own a small business, you could feel the urge to respond to criticism with a personal tone, especially if you feel that the customer is not being honest. The problem with doing so is that it worsens the situation, which is not what you want.

The best way to handle such situations is to thank the customer for taking the time to give their feedback, while also apologizing for the experience that they’ve had. Let them know that you take their feedback seriously and that you will take the time to look into the matter so that they never have such an experience again.

Such a message could read as:

“Thank you so much for taking the time to leave a review. We are so sorry that we did not meet your expectations. We want you to know that we take customer experience seriously and that we are going to follow up with the [team/person/department] to fully resolve your issue.

We shall get back in due course. Thanks again for your time and continued support.”

You could also offer them a discount or coupon that they can use for their next purchase to assure them that you are really devoted to ensuring that they have only positive experiences.

It’s also very advisable to follow up with the customer, especially if their review leaves out some important details. There are times when you follow up with a reviewer only to find out that they did not mean a word they said. In such cases, such reviewers remove their reviews even before you go further into your inquiry.

Mixed Feedback

There are times when you encounter both negative and positive messages in the same review. For such type of feedback, you still want to thank the reviewer for leaving a review. You can then address the positive part of the review before addressing the negative part.

While at it, let them know that their feedback matters a lot to you and the process of service delivery. Assure them that you will use the feedback to improve their experience next time.

Fake Feedback

There are times when you might encounter fake reviews, simply meant to defame your business. It’s best to keep calm while addressing such reviews, since you know the truth but your customers and prospective buyers don’t.

Let the reviewer know that they probably got the wrong business and that as a business, you also don’t appreciate fake reviews. Let them know that your business takes defamation seriously and can take the necessary remediation action in cases where the review was intentionally meant to defame your business.

What Should You Avoid?

When responding to customer feedback, regardless of the type, there are some things that you should never do. The main N0-NOs that you should avoid when replying to customer reviews include:

Giving justifications or excuses

Basing your replies on emotions

One-line replies such as “We’re deeply sorry for your experience”

Ignoring negative reviews even if they are fake

Sending insincere replies to customer feedback

Arguing with or blaming the customer for their negative experience

To sum it up,

After reading this piece, you now have an idea about the best feedback handling practices. Keep in mind that what you say to customers matters a lot and is often more important than the review they left. And if you ever feel that you can’t keep up with the task of review management, you can always hire experts to do that for you. That way, you can concentrate on other equally crucial tasks, without ruining one of the most important elements of any business.