Tips for Managing Customer Feedback & Reviews

Managing customer feedback is about protecting your reputation

For a service business, your reputation is your lifeline. If your reputation gets damaged because of negative customer feedback and reviews online (whether you deserve it or not), there can be far-reaching consequences that impact your profitability.

This is especially true in an industry like HVAC and Refrigeration service, where it can be challenging to establish trust.

Just about every company makes mistakes occasionally and ends up with a bad customer review or complaint on social media. It’s how you respond that can make all the difference. And yes, you should almost always respond (more to come on that point).

The time to come up with your response strategy is NOT when you find out a customer has posted a negative comment. Take the time to put a plan in place proactively. So when the inevitable happens, you can respond quickly, minimize the damage, and possibly even turn the situation around.

Here’s how to do it.

Start by monitoring social media and online reviews

To be in a position to respond to negative comments right away, you must be regularly monitoring customer feedback on business review sites like Yelp and on your company’s social media pages. Otherwise, you might not find out about an angry customer’s post in time to respond quickly.

If you’ve got active social media pages that you already monitor for marketing purposes, so much the better. You may already have social media monitoring tools that look out for brand mentions. Be sure to monitor those dashboards frequently for negative comments.

If you don’t have automated tools, designate someone within your company to check the appropriate pages every day if at all possible.

When should you respond?

Especially when your online comments and reviews are mostly positive, it can be tempting to ignore an isolated negative review. That’s a mistake, and here’s why:

• If you fail to respond to a complaint, it’s almost like admitting you don’t care about your customers’ needs. At least, that’s how many people will see it.
• You lose the chance to fix the problem and retain a customer (and have that evidence visible to the world).
• According to a study reported in Harvard Business Review, companies that regularly respond to both positive and negative reviews tend to see their ratings improve.

How fast do you need to respond? Of course, it depends on the problem and how upset the customer is. In general though, it’s ideal if you can respond within a few hours. Don’t wait longer than a week.

EXCEPTION: you may want to avoid responding to negative feedback when someone is threatening you or you are concerned about your safety or that of your staff. If that happens, alert the appropriate authorities and do not post your contact information online.

How to respond to negative feedback and reviews

Prepare some responses

It can be tough to avoid getting defensive and saying the wrong thing in the heat of the moment to an angry customer (especially when you believe you are in the right).

That’s why it’s smart to prepare a range of “canned” responses ahead of time. When a need arises, you can start with one of these and edit to add the specifics of the current situation. This tactic helps you avoid emotional responses that can do more harm than good.

Apologize properly

Start by putting on your empathy hat. Even if you disagree with the customer’s assessment of what happened, you can certainly relate to the disappointment and frustration they are feeling.

TIP: Don’t include the name of your business in response to negative comments. If you do, that increases the chance that the negative review will come up in search results for your business.

Address your customer’s primary complaint with an apology that acknowledges their feelings:

“I’m sorry to hear that you are unhappy with the repair service we provided yesterday.”

Let the customer know that sub-par service is not the norm for your business:

“We usually fix problems on the first visit, and I’m disappointed that we failed to do that for you.”

Thank the customer for giving you a chance to make things right:

“I’m grateful that you brought this to my attention so we can do better.”

If appropriate, you can include a few words about how you intend to fix the problem.

Take it offline

Avoid too many back-and-forth comments online. Try not to ask for more information or offer explanations online, which can easily encourage more negative feedback.

After a couple of exchanges at the most, ask the customer to contact you directly so you can work together on a resolution:

“I would like to learn more about your experience and make things right. If you’re interested,
call me at (your business phone number) at your convenience.”

If the customer does reach out to you, listen actively and empathetically, and do your best to offer a helpful solution that solves the customer’s problem. If you can do that, there’s a chance you can convince the customer to remove or revise their negative comments online.

What about positive feedback and reviews?

Should you respond to customers’ positive comments and reviews online? You should if you possibly can. Here are just a few reasons why:

• You have the chance to further build relationships with happy customers.
• You show that you’re always engaged and interested in learning how you’re doing.
• You can learn more about what customers appreciate most.
• If appropriate, you can ask a customer who posted a comment on one of your social pages to share their comments on a business review website. (You can also do this when customers send thank you emails.)

FINAL TIP: When responding to a positive comment or review, in this case you should always mention the name of your business. When you do, it increases the chance that the good review will come up in searches for your business.

More information to help your business succeed

Check out these articles with helpful advice for HVAC and Refrigeration service leaders.