Have you ever seen a bad review? Has it changed your mind about whether or not you’re going to work with that company?
Today we’re going to talk about how to make sure that your Google reviews look great and what to do if you get a negative Nelly. Someone that no matter what you do is never going to be happy.
Did you receive a negative review?
You’ve received a negative review. After you get a little angry or maybe cry a little bit because it’s really negative. And it has you thinking “Well, what can I do about it? Can I remove negative reviews from my Google business page?”
The answer is NO, you can not remove a negative review from Google. Now, the problem is that people have opinions. Whether they’re right or wrong, we can’t get them taken down. You can try anything you want, but they’re not going anywhere.
How can you start getting positive reviews?
What your job is now is to think about how I can start getting positive reviews. Very important because we tend to wait for the negative to show up as opposed to soliciting or asking for the positives to show up.
Here’s a couple of ideas you might want to use when someone says, “Oh, my God! This is the best experience on the planet.” You can say, “Hey, I’ve got a smartphone here. Can I just record that real quick? Will that be alright? Just giving video consent is fine.
Maybe you just gave them a brand new car and they’re standing in front of their car and they’re like, “Uh-huh! I got a new car smell, right?” Or maybe you just finished a consulting agreement and the client is like over the moon.
You get them to write it down in that moment because that moment will pass and you’ve lost that spontaneity and genuine feelings of true elation about your business. This is so important.
Think creatively, let’s say we own a restaurant, print out little tiny strips of paper that says, “If you loved our food, review us on Yelp or review us on Google.” Link to it and then just put it inside of the bill when you go to pay.
Little tiny things like that, people will take the extra effort, if they loved you, they loved the food, they loved the waiter; They will respond. Because our opinion now is so important in the grand scheme of things.
An Inc. magazine article said that it takes 40 positive reviews to deflect the effects of 1 negative review which sounds crazy but it’s true. I’m sure you guys have seen this. You pull up an Amazon product and you’ll see that there’s all these great reviews and then there’s the crazy review.
It’s like 17 paragraphs of every single little thing they felt throughout the whole thing. There is a point when you as a buyer know the crazy from the real. When you have a five-paragraph negative review, go ahead and take it with a grain of salt.
Now, one thing to think about though is to make sure you’re asking for positive reviews.
Do not respond and anger. I want you to sleep on it. I want you to take a look at that.
I want you to step back and say, “Okay, how can I improve my business based on what they said?” So, be happy that they showed you this weakness in your business.
Then I want you the next day to respond by saying “Please call us. We’ll make it right.” And a phone number and a name. That’s it. Don’t put any like “You’re wrong. How dare you. Who do you think you are?”
Just stay away from all of that negativity and say, “We care about you. Here’s a phone number. So you asked for it. We will make it right. We will do the right thing.” Also, make sure that you have sat down with your team and discussed ways of handling negative reviews? When do we respond and how do we respond?
It’s very important that you have a written social media policy. In the event that you get a flaming review, you have a system in place to make sure that we don’t respond in anger that we can learn from the review.
Also what that person is telling us about our business and then finally how do we make it right. You remember you’re going to post one simple “I care about you. Your business is important to us. Call us and we’re going to make it right.”
But don’t put anything else because anger baguettes more anger. And this is a very emotionally charged topic for a lot of businesses. Hopefully, if you’re finding value out of these kinds of tips and recommendations, go ahead and post in the comments below.
You’re learning about negative reviews or things that have happened to you. If you want to take it to the next level, schedule a Discovery Call
Well, pull back the curtain. I will look exactly at what keywords you’re ranking for and we can give you some specific tips on how to make that look great for your company.