As an experienced Quality Assurance Engineer, one of my tasks was to investigate the root causes of bad customer reviews.
Coming to think of it, I do not know of any shop that has not a single bad customer review. Most of them experience at least a few during their lifetime.
In this post, not only will I provide you with tips to avoid bad customer reviews, but I will also disclose how to ethically turn a bad customer service review into a good one !
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The importance of customer reviews
Before speaking of how to avoid bad customer reviews, it is important to understand the power of customer reviews in general.
Imagine you have a physical fashion shop downtown. The entrance of the shop would be made of large bay sliding glazed doors. Now, what items would you display at that specific area?
Knowing that the entrance of your shop is a strategic area, you would display appealing items. Thanks to the glaze door, the appealing articles you display is what will draw your customers inside your shop.
Customer reviews are the appealing articles to display. They are what your leads will see behind the large bay sliding glazed doors. Your lead’s decision to enter your shop will depend very much on if you have good or bad customer reviews. In order words, your turnover will depend on what is visible at your shop entrance.
The more customer reviews your shop has, the better. Whether they are good or bad. Obviously, it is even better to have lots of GOOD – if not excellent – reviews. In a sense, having bad customer reviews is good as well as it gives you information on how to improve.
Nowadays, finding information has become very easy through internet. Including when you contemplate purchasing something in an online shop. One of our reflexes is to google the customer reviews of the shop you are targeting. How would you react if the customer reviews are bad?
Let me rephrase the previous question: what would you think of a shop whose customer reviews are bad? Not only you wouldn’t become a customer, but you might advise against purchasing anything from that shop. In order words, that reputation of that shop will also depend on the customer reviews.
As a business owner, bad customer reviews can make you grow quickly. Bad customer reviews can damage not only your turnover, but your reputation. My suggestion is to watch over your reputation: check Proverbs chapter 22 verse 1.
The good news is…
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Customer service review are under your sole control
Yes, there are several options for you to control your customer service review. As I previously mentioned, your customer service review is the like the sliding glazed doors. It is your prerogative to control what to display.
It is your prerogative to decide to display the bad customer reviews or the good ones at your shop. I do not know of any business owner that would purposely display bad customer reviews at their front door. In your shop, you are in charge of everything. Including what to uncover to your leads.
Once your lead makes a purchase, they become customers of your shop. Whether they buy a product or a service, it is your responsibility to provide them with a good customer service! Make no mistake: to your client, you have control on providing a good or a bad customer service.
How would you know if your product is a qualitative one? This will depend on your customer’s needs and desires. Not on yours. Listen to them. And communicate. If your product meets their needs and desires, your customer’s satisfaction will speak for itself.
If the product (or service) does not meet your customer’s need, then your customer might advise against purchasing your products – and that is how your reputation is damaged at other potential leads. Bad customer reviews can travel faster than light in business.
Now, mistakes can happen. A non-conforming service or product can be missed by your quality process. Or a customer can be cranky and can make sure to leave you a bad review. After all, we are all humans, therefore subject to mistakes, failures, different mood, misunderstandings, etc.
And that is OK… as long as you are willing to improve. In business, it is important to learn from your previous mistakes. In this case, if you have bad customer reviews, investigate and find out the root cause, and make sure to prevent from reoccurrence. This is the best way to learn from your mistakes.
Do not just learn from your past mistakes. Learn from your competitor’s mistakes as well. There is a lot you can learn from your competitors just by observing them. Let alone by looking them up. The same applies for your partners, suppliers, etc.
Observe their processes and adapt to your business. What you observe must inspire you either to implement or to improve. In fact, if you observe the founders of Apple and Microsoft, they kept doing nothing but that: improving by getting inspired from one another, whilst being competitors.
Constant improvement is key to be and to remain successful. If you rest on your successes with no desire to improve, your customers will end up going to your competitors… Now picture that: you put in so much hard work to get your customers to end up at your competitors… How frustrating !
Keep improving by keeping an open mind, train yourself and your staff, observe the market, read, audit your suppliers, discuss with your partners, engage with relevant parties, etc. Do not let anything stop you from improving.
Learning from your competitors mistake as well as constantly improving also contribute in controlling the results of your customer service reviews.
If need be, communicate with your customers: their feedback will definitely help you improve. Speaking of communicating with your customer…
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Encourage your clients to leave customer reviews
In business, it might be difficult to obtain reviews from your customers. After all, they all are busy with their lives and their businesses. It is your job and your responsibility to encourage them to leave customer reviews.
This is important because people tend to be sceptical when they notice a shop has no review. When your leads become sceptical, the odds for them to become your customers are not good. A way of building confidence with your lead is to have customer reviews.
The best way for you to understand this is to put yourself in your leads shoes. If you google customer reviews on a particular shop and find nothing: what would you think? I’d love to read your thoughts in comments.
If you’d like to obtain customer reviews from your clients, start by asking them… Do not assume your clients will automatically drop a review after benefiting from your product or service. Prior to asking, make sure you think this through.
Who is to ask? Ideally the person who served them or whoever has established a good relationship with your client. The point is to make your client comfortable enough for them to be honest. It starts with choosing the right person they will discuss with.
When would you ask? How would you ask? This depends on you as a business owner. Some companies decide to ask for feedback immediately after their client is served. Others will ask periodically.
Asking immediately make sense when you know you might not see your customer again. This can be done formally (written communication) or informally (verbally, or on phone record).
Asking periodically works best when it is a long-term customer, who regularly purchases from you. This is usually done in formal ways: satisfaction surveys, video recording, written testimonies, etc.
To give you a good customer service example, I will mention Gene, a subcontractor I worked a lot with. The very first time I needed his service, I gave him a phone call. And I will never forget his last words over that conversation. Those words were:
Lorena, please do not just consider me as your subcontractor. Feel free to call me whenever you have a question regarding the safety of your equipment. I will gladly answer to your questions over the phone.
As I was looking for a subcontractor to certify the safety of my equipment, I had to choose among lots of them. Needless to say: Gene was the one I selected. That sentence of his was what made me choose him over the others.
The job was well done, and up till today I still can call him if I have any question. In order words: as Gene’s client, I will always provide him with excellent customer reviews.
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Steps to avoiding a bad customer review
In this section, I will uncover some critical steps not only to avoid bad customer service reviews, but to gaining reviews for an excellent customer service.
First and foremost, respond to the requests coming from your leads (or customer). No one likes being ignored. Responding in an amicable and respectful way helps avoiding bad customer service reviews.
Whether they contact you for practical questions, technicalities, claims, or whatsoever, you have to respond. Even if it is just to acknowledge receipt, respond. They will know and feel respected and appreciative for you making that time. Not responding to a customer’s request is NOT an option.
Secondly, be transparent to them. Customers are human beings. And as such, they value and appreciate transparency. If you are not sure about the answer to their question, tell them you will check and get back to them. If your product or service have any limits, make sure they know.
Not being transparent is an open door to misunderstanding, perceived overpromises (from your side), disappointments (on your customer’s end) and eventually bad customer reviews. Everything a businessperson will strive to avoid.
Finally, be proactive and deliver your promise. Take initiatives to make sure you will be able to deliver properly or over deliver. You can also be proactive by warning your customer about the difficulties they may encounter.
Another way of being proactive is to learn from your past mistakes, and also from your competitor’s mistakes. This data will feed you with ideas regarding areas where you can be proactive. Your competitor’s unhappy customer may become your new customer. Use that data to make a difference.
Deliver per your agreement to your customer. Agree on a date, their requirements, and conditions. If need be, overdeliver by making either an early delivery, or by exceeding the quality requested with raising the price.
Sometimes, despite doing all of the above, a client may still leave you a poor customer service review. Fortunately, it can be overturned in most cases.
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Turn a bad customer review into a good one.
Fortunately, one mistake does not define a human being. Well, the same goes for customer service reviews. Provided that the business owner works to improve. This means, it is very possible to turn poor customer service reviews into good one. Here below is how you can do so.
First, if possible, respond to all reviews. The good AND the bad. By responding to the good, you are showing to your customers that their voice is heard and taken into consideration. By responding to the bad, you are showing to your customers that you are open to solve their dissatisfaction.
Respond to the bad review publicly by apologizing for your customer’s dissatisfaction and by promising to contact them privately to sort things out. You ought to keep that promise. Apologizing to the inconvenience caused to your customer gives a message of humility to your leads.
When discussing in private, listen actively to why your customer was dissatisfied. Make sure your remain friendly and respectful when discussing with them. This can be challenging when dealing with an unhappy customer.
The next step will be to apologize once again to your customer if any nonconformity was confirmed. And offer a containment corrective action like a discount, a free product, etc. Find a compromise with them.
You ought to investigate the root cause of the nonconformity your customer experienced. If need be, send them a report with the results of your investigation and with your action plan to prevent reoccurrence in future. Your business will be perceived as a serious one when doing so.
What about you? Do you know of any other tips to avoid gaining a bad customer review? If so, I would love to read your thoughts in the comments section.