Responding to a Positive or Negative Review

by Rick White, President 180BIZ                                                                (Estimated Read Time 5 minutes)

In this episode, I’ll want to finish up with reviews. One of the biggest mistakes I see shops make and honestly businesses everywhere make, is they don't respond to reviews. Imagine you and I are at a party and you just worked on my car. I walked up at that party and I said, Hey Eduardo, thank you so much for everything you did on my vehicle. You did such a great job. I've never been treated the way you treated me this last visit. Thank you so much. And you turn around and walk away without ever saying a word. That's what happens when you don't respond to a review. People want to be seen, heard and appreciated. Responding to a review does all three of those.

Responding to the review creates a connection.

And you should respond to everyone, both positive and negative. You want to respond to the positive reviews, again, so that you build a connection with them. It shows that you care and you appreciate that feedback.

When you respond, personalize it. Talk about the work you did on the vehicle. Talk about the type of vehicle it was. Talk about the mileage the vehicle has on it. For example, if the customer writes, “Thanks so much, Rick, for the great work you did on my car.” You can respond with something like this. “Hey, John, it was great to work on your Acura and get those breaks back to where they should be. Let us know if you have any other questions. We love working on that vehicle with you.” That's all you need to do. And what you've done is you've shown people that you know who they are. Somebody else that's never done business with you is thinking, “Hey look, they remember what they did to the car and they remember what kind of car that guy has.”

Your goal is to build future business.

That builds the connection.  That builds future business. Cause now maybe someone does a search on Acura Auto Repair and that review comes up. It’s a simple act that makes a huge impact. That's what this is all about. It’s getting people connected. One of the hardest and most frustrating things to do is leave genuine feedback for someone because I want them to do better, and they don’t respond or even acknowledge it. I want them I care and never hear a thing.

My bad review of Holiday Inn yielded crickets.

My best example of this was when Brenda and I went to a Holiday Inn up in New Hampshire, and it was the last time we used Holiday Inn. We had such a bad experience that I filled out a survey. It took me about 15 minutes. I gave them all zeros and told them why. They asked if they could call me in the review, and I said yes. I never heard a word.

I was desperately a client that wanted to continue to use the brand. And their indifference… Please hear this… Their perceived indifference shut both me and Brenda off from the entire brand. We are now Hilton heroes. We now use Hilton wherever we go.

Also, make sure you personalize your response. It could sound something like this. “John, thank you so much for bringing your 2015 Ford F150 in for that oil leak. I'm glad we were able to take care of it for you. Thank you so much for trusting us. We look forward to seeing you again, not too soon though.” A response like that makes all the difference in the world.

94% said a negative review made them avoid a business.

Here is a statistic that I found staggering. 94% of the people surveyed say a negative review and or a negative response made them avoid a business. That's a big deal. Not only is it a negative review, but it's also your negative response.

So what am I telling you? Don't go dark, don't get defensive. Don't go nuts. That will not help you. What you want to do instead is put something positive on there. And I’ll talk a lot more about this in my Pocket Business Genius webinar titled “Everything Reviews.” I have another webinar called “How to Handle a Negative Review.” I talk about the whole science, psychology, and everything about handling a negative review. It's awesome.

56% changed their mind based on a review’s response.

The next statistic is 56% of the people surveyed changed their opinion of a company based on a response the company gave to a negative review. When you're dealing with a negative review, don't go back and forth. Understand that your audience for your responses is not that person. It's for the people coming in behind them. It’s for the people who are thinking, “Do I want to do business with this company?”

Here’s another example. You get a review from someone you know is phishing, or it's just not real. You should still respond by saying, “Hey John, I'm really sorry. I've done everything I can looking in our database but I can't find you. Please give us a call. We'll definitely take care of this for you.” People understand that stuff happens. Respond to it positively.

If the negative review is really legit, get it offline as quickly as possible. You could write something like this. “I'm so sorry you experienced that. That's not the way we do business. I'd like to talk to you about it. Here's my personal number. Give me a call. Let's get this handled for you.” Now, what's even better is when you do handle it if you can, ask them to update their review. Don't ask them to change it. Ask them to update it.

53% of consumers expect a response within 1 week.
33% expect a response within 3 days.

The next thing is to be sure your responses are timely. 53% of consumers expect a company to respond to a negative review within ONE WEEK. 33% of those actually expect it within THREE DAYS. So, make sure that you are timely with your review responses on all of them. Make it a habit that every couple of days you go through your reviews. Even better, set up some Google alerts to get notified when someone mentions your company.

Your job doesn’t stop at attraction, it continues to retention.

You all work very hard to get people into your shop. Our job doesn't stop with attraction, it stops with retention. That's what reviews are all about. It’s keeping people with us. What’s the purpose of a business? It’s to create and keep a client. This is an important subject that we don't spend enough time on.

God bless. Stay safe, have some fun, and go make some money.

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