Management of Negative Reviews

Regardless of your content people might not like it. Management of negative reviews can be difficult. Some people just don’t like what you have or get a kick out of refunds/ poor reviews because they want to be different.

If you ever get to watch a video, check out the Steve Jobs commencement speech from Stanford University posted on their official channel. It is regarded as a great speech to most business people- or people who "know". When you listen to it, it is pretty good. It is one of those "oh yeah" obvious text but it is performed in a great way. Most people stop before he gets to point 3. Point 3 is the most valuable lesson.

Anyway. The video has been viewed 37.1 million times. It has got 315k likes at the time of this post. Do you know how many Dislikes? 5.9k. This is before Youtube removed the amount of dislikes.
So even a great speech (one where most of the comments reflect this) there are some people who didn't like it.

You can give everything to people but still someone will still have a concern

My experience is frustrating but typical.

I created a large ebook that detailed everything someone would want to know about a specific arthritis. It detailed possible causes and remedies to reduce pain- even reduction in further destruction of joints. It was different and didn’t contain any hype. Just “this is what you do = no pain”.

It sold well and it got refunds. About 3-5% refunded (which is average- some ebook publishers have 30%). They kept the book I refunded them. Most of the ebook refund reasons were the following:

- not what I expected

- I thought it would be cheaper

This was good because I was able to adjust my sales page to really bring home the reasoning behind the price and exactly what was to be expected.

Then one caught my eye:

- I can not print the book

So I went through respectfully the process of how to print the book- using text and pictures (you just dont know how well people know software).

That made it worse.

I got a barrage of text about how they know how to print out, but this wasn't printing. It was full on. But by no means asking for a refund.

OK. I went through the pdf making process making sure that I hadn't applied "do not print" to it (I didn't) and remade the book. I tested it on mine, and family members computers- just in case.

If anyone asks what happens when you put gas onto a fire, this is what happened.

That seemed to infuriate them even more- like I had given them a blank page.

I then gave them the Word document, because at this point, I wanted to keep the sale and a reputation of helping people (Zappos style).

Then the refund request came in.

I gladly agreed :)

But I always wondered what went on? I had no "you know, this isn't working on my end, thanks for the effort". Nope.

As a single business person you are Customer Service.

Initially you will not export your customer service to anyone else. You will handle it yourself, which you should.

You will find that people are not reasonable and the customer is not always right. Sometimes whatever you can do will not reduce their annoyance.

Most people, like the vast majority, are good. The bad ones shout louder and thus it seems like people are bad, but they are not.

Sometimes it is trolls but most of the time it is just people.

The Internet is very secretive regardless of what you hear. You don't really know what the person on the other end has:

• gone through,
• going through, 
• how much they really make, 
• if they do actually have disposable income, 
• if they had a rough day, 
• are they in pain.

You have to think- do I need to win the battle or win the war?

Most of the time you should win the war. The battles are too time consuming. But what you have to do is make sure that all your customer service boxes are ticked and then the universe can't touch you.

?

With the above example I tried multiple ways to help the customer. In my now wiser days, I will not give out the Word file, but end the very clearly dwindling situation with a refund request. Trying everything with a smile.

But again, it needs to be with respect. Then at least you have not shouted down or made the customer stupid. If you come away being the better person, so be it. If someone you don’t know has a look at that conversation, they should be able to say “you did well, you just couldn’t please them”.

Job done.

Most businesses state that one bad customer can spread news worse than a good customer. But what I have found is that you should not think of it that way. A customer is a customer and you should make sure you do everything that is businessly feasible for both.

Businessly feasible.

A new term I just made up that I think sums up this issue.

You can bend over backward to help a customer and that is great, but where do you draw that line?
Oh we need to keep hold to the customer? Maybe, maybe not. Disrespect works both ways. Sure we have no idea what is going on in the customers life- but vice versa. If the customer says to me "I can't find the printer option on the pdf reader" then I would go out of my way to figure out what reader they were using and help them. That is customer service.

But I did that with pictures and text and still no go. I have answered their question with respect. But got little back.

I went past the line by giving the Word file to a stranger. On the second email, that was a completely unnecessary rant from the customer, a refund should have been given.

"I apologise that we could not resolve this issue. Please have a refund and keep the ebook free of charge".

Something like that. Acknowledging there was an issue that both parties couldn’t resolve, here is your money back and you can keep the book. All said with respect.

Why?

Both of our time is precious. I am trying and the emails backward and forwards show that I am trying. But when you get little back, no feedback and escalating tensions- then all communication is lost. Then it should end with respect.

If a customer in your business is worth $100 (they bough a few ebooks over time) then you have that amount to play around with. You also have to ask yourself, are they always going to send emails that "shout" rather than be respectful? They might spend $200+ but use up tons of your time. That is not a helpful relationship.

Then you must consider when to refund.

As soon as someone asks for a refund, I always ask the question,

"Sure we can do that, but is there anything that I can help you with first?"

It states that you are willing to fulfill their request, but you are also asking for their help in trying to figure out why.

Being professional all the way with negative reviews

We need to confront these negative reviews where ever we can. There is an old saying where 1 good comment will influence 1 more person but 1 negative comment will be spread far and wide.

These are not just random words, it speaks the truth. Because research has shown:

• that negative word of mouth has a significant detrimental effect on brand equity and purchase intention.

• the effect of negative online customer reviews is more detrimental to the brand equity of a high involvement product (like an iPhone or a product that you are marketing strongly).
  

• when consumers are exposed to negative information about a product, they can categorize the product as low in quality.

Research has also strongly found that the impact of one-star reviews is greater than the impact of five-star reviews; and customers read review text rather than relying only on summary statistics.

Online “word of mouth” also affects offline product buying (movie tickets or stock buying).

Confronting, trying to solve and offering an apology are efforts that we can try and diffuse a situation publicly and which people can see that we have made a reasonable attempt to resolve the issue. This technique follows from research. Zhao el al (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1016/j.intmar.2019.11.001) found that when a plan is transmitted through the review- as a reply coupled with an apology (with sometimes compensation), it was found to be much better than just defending your position. And this is regardless of the negative review type.

The 2 step negative review resolution also seems to be what you would expect if you were the actual customer.

1. Apologise and
2. Have an action plan (plus compensation)

However, if one or the other is done then they have limited effect, you need both for the plan to work. Piehler (https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JSTP-10-2018-0227/full/html) also states the same: “combining an explanation with compensation is the most effective management response; providing neither an explanation nor compensation is the least effective”.

Ultimately, a business that focuses upon customer satisfaction, manage their online reputation and provide value to their customers are more likely to see higher profits.

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