Unflattering Ratings are Good for Business — How to Leverage Them Effectively
Introduction: The Ratings Trap
You run a small shop and rely on word of mouth to attract new customers. You’re wondering if you should get some ratings online to open up a customer acquisition channel from the broad reach of the internet. You’re concerned that if you get some negative ratings, it may turn off not only new customers but existing ones as well. Your concerns are fully valid and is borne out by statistics.
However, there’s a whole other side to this story. The information trove. While an unflattering rating may encourage consumers to avoid a provider, the same rating tells the provider what their customers want and what to improve in their business practices. A chiropractor rated at 4.8 in customer service and 3.1 in technical delivery, may benefit by reading a book on techniques or by explaining their methods to their clients in simpler terms.
How to Get the Most Out of Your Negative Ratings
Negative ratings are a part of the business, and it is important to know how to handle them. Here are some tips for handling negative ratings:
- Respond if possible and as soon as possible.
- Address the criticism and be open and honest about any issues.
- Offer a solution so that they can be satisfied with your product or service.
- Learn from your mistakes so that you can do better next time.
How to Turn Negative Ratings into Positive Ones
The first thing you need to do when you get a negative rating is to take a deep breath and keep your cool. There are many reasons why customers might leave a bad rating for your product or service, and in most cases it’s not personal. Maybe the customer had an issue with the delivery, or maybe they just didn’t like the product. The key is to always respond in a calm and professional manner, no matter how angry you might be feeling inside.
It’s important not to get defensive because this will only make things worse. Instead, appreciate their experience and offer them something of value to make it better. Some businesses offer discounts on future purchases to customers who provide feedback, for example.
Three Tips for Winning Back Disgruntled Customers
- Listen to the customer.
- Acknowledge and appreciate their perspective.
- Make it right.
The first thing to do when a customer is disgruntled is to listen to them and try to understand their concerns. It’s important not only because it will allow you to be more empathetic but also because you’ll get a better understanding of the issue at hand. When apologizing, it’s important that it be genuine and sincere, not just for show or for PR purposes, but because the customer deserves that much at least from you. And finally, if your company has made a mistake or done something wrong with regards to that particular customer, then make sure that the issue is resolved in some way or another — even if it means giving them a refund on their purchase.
Conclusion: The Value of Negative Feedback
Analyze negative feedback in painstaking detail and gleam as much information from it as possible and devise, implement, monitor mitigation strategy. Use negative feedback to understand your customers better and as self-improvement directive. Ultimately, as your number of ratings grow and you learn from mistakes, your negative ratings will become a smaller and smaller percent of your overall ratings. So, you can think of negative ratings as your guide to improving your business processes, products, and services.
Shaeba Ratings provides free and paid services to gather customer feedback with enough granularity to provide actionable information at a glance. There, you can get a QR code to share with your customers, for direct feedback on various categories and criteria.
