How To Turn Negative Online Reviews into Successful Sales
By: Chris Mulvaney, President (CMDS)
Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words will never …hurt us? Wait, never mind. In the craft beverage industry, words can do damage, especially online where your reputation is always one Google search away.
Facebook, Yelp, and Google are the three most-trusted review sources for local searches. Reviews on these sites matter. The way that your business treats a negative review can tell your customers a lot about you. So, if you do happen to receive one, you need to act fast.
And while you are no doubt used to handling the difficult customer in person, social review channels are open for all to see, and negative comments can reflect poorly on your craft brand and, ultimately, cost you sales — right? Well, yes and no.
Yes, if you don’t manage your negative comments properly, then it could be bad news for your revenue stream. However, there are ways to offset negative reviews. And, if you respond the right way, you can turn those negative comments around and avoid having a damaging social media mishap.
In fact, you can leverage them to actually improve your conversion rates, “boost” your sales, and ultimately create success for your craft beverage brand.
Create a Game Plan
Before you take any action on a review, you should always have a game plan in place. That way, your social media presence remains consistent across all review platforms.
Look at it this way: think of each negative review as an opportunity to show your customers that you care.
Here are some game plan directives to put into place:
1. Don’t Ignore Them or Be Defensive: Hearing someone criticize your business hurts. It can be tempting to close your browser every time you read a bad review, or, even worse, to respond with a cutting retort, but burying your head in the sand or exhibiting online “road rage” isn’t going to solve anything. Instead, come up with the right response. Address them by name. Humanizing your approach will demonstrate your brand ethics. Make sure that you remain genuine. Don’t answer with an auto-reply. Take the time to actually investigate each issue. Don’t debate the validity of their statements, argue, or respond in an aggressive or combative way, even if you don’t agree. Arguing with a dissatisfied client online makes their original complaint seem more valid, and worse, it never makes you look good.
Instead, thank the reviewer for their feedback and offer a sincere apology for their experience. You don’t have to take responsibility, but do show empathy.
2. Respond as Quickly as Possible: It is vital to respond to negative comments as quickly as you can. Doing this will give you a better chance to salvage those bad reviews. Each minute matters on social media because everyone has real-time access to it.
To help you manage your social media responses in a timely manner, it’s best to hire an agency. They can assist with implementing tools so you are alerted in real-time whenever you receive a comment on one of your channels. You can quickly resolve any issues and prevent significant customer loss.
3. Really Make the Effort to Solve the Problem: Making something right will also show potential customers that you are completely committed to ensuring satisfaction.
In addition, many reviewers will go back and post their experience if it turns into a positive one, and every positive review takes the sting out of a negative one. Highlight these experiences so customers see that you care about the outcome.
4. Keep it Real: An imperfect, but pretty strong rating appears much more believable to customers than having a perfect record. Unblemished reviews can look “fake” and more untrustworthy than their blemished counterparts. In a nutshell, negative reviews provide some honest feedback on your craft beverage product or service and can mix in nicely with the positive commentary.
Leverage Other Business’s Negative Experiences
As the saying goes, a person who learns from other people’s mistakes is a wise person. And leveraging other people’s negative experiences can offer many benefits.
Learning from others by doing your research helps you avoid the same obstacles.
For instance, here are some top online customer complaints about various craft beverage establishments swirling around social media right now:
● Place not open as advertised/Website not updated/Hours not listed.
● Want a bigger pour for the price.
● Employees are rude/non-compliant with safety.
● Tour was longer than it stated.
● Not clear about rules (kids, food, etc).
● Not enough offerings/limited selection.
● No Flight Layout (for breweries).
All of these comments boil down to the same two issues: Online presence and customer communication.
You know what takes to manage your business and your inventory. And, with the popularity of craft beverage businesses, there is a steady stream of new customers. Some patrons, used to a different type of establishment, or ones who are simply impatient when it comes to being served at a busy place, offer a different level of frustration.
To counteract this, make sure you take notice of negative reviews from similar businesses to limit having the same thing happen to you.
Here are some counter-acting responses to the above examples:
● Always keep your website and hours of operation updated. Do you require reservations or are you first come, first serve? Do your hours change with the seasons? Close for private parties? Planning these updates in advance and keeping your business information up to date ensures you do not get disgruntled customers who are more likely to chalk up their “bad” experience through a negative review.
● Be CLEAR with your pricing, online and in person. Be transparent about promotions and their start/end dates. State whether sales tax is or is not included. Be open about the size of your pour. Being transparent can avoid any unwelcome surprises.
● Train your employees in the art of customer service. While you know there will be times when it will get busy and your staff may get pulled in different directions, the customer should always be treated in kind. Consider security cameras to give peace of mind to both the customer and the staff so that any situation can have an objective eye.
● Be aware of the most up-to-date safety and cleanliness measures. Make sure your business adheres to them to keep everyone as safe as possible all round.
● If you provide tours, state when your tours begin and finish. If they can be more lax, state that too. Make sure this is stated online and in person.
● Let your customer be prepared before they come to your business on what your rules are by posting them and in your place of business. Do you have a food menu or do you use a trusted vendor? Are kids allowed? Is there an “Adults-Only” area? Tasting rules? Your menu and offerings should be clearly stated online and in person. Make sure to keep this updated. Are you a brewery with a flight menu? Let them know either way. Some things cannot be avoided (such as running out of a flavor or not being able to offer growlers) … try to keep up on this as much as possible. Mention it on social or display it on a board at your business.
You will always have to take the good with the bad, but the more you know, the more you can prepare for.
It’s True: Those Bad reviews Can Actually Improve Your Sales. Believe it or not, bad reviews have the power to improve your sales and conversion rates, too.
As previously mentioned, if your business gets only positive reviews, consumers might question whether those reviews are legitimate.
Since nobody is perfect, having a healthy mix of both positive and negative reviews will help customers view your business as more trustworthy. Most customers actually expect negative reviews on your site, and if they don’t see them, they think your reviews are fabricated.
And, when there are negative reviews mixed in with the positive ones, that reduced skepticism will add to your brand’s authenticity.
For that reason, it’s important not to delete your negative comments on your social channels because they can actually work in your favor by making the positive comments that much more credible.
The Last Gulp
To recap:
● Create a uniformed GAMEPLAN.
● Use other competitors’ negative review experiences to improve your brand strategy.
● Leverage negative comments to drive beverage sales and conversion rates.
That’s why it’s important to hire the right agency to manage your online presence with these initiatives and more. Doing so ensures that you uphold a valuable asset – your business’s reputation, without taking away from your valuable time.
All in all, your social media strategy in how you respond to negative comments can flip the unsatisfactory customer experience on its head, turning them into positive sentiments and increased sales, resulting in the happy sound of clinking glasses.
Chris Mulvaney is a business developer, entrepreneur, and an award-winning creative marketing strategist. His extensive professional background includes working with some of the world’s leading brands – and personally helping clients refine their corporate vision and generate the kind of eye-popping results that too many companies only dream about. Visit… cmdsonline.com
