The same openness of the internet that makes it such an incredibly powerful way to connect with consumers also makes it a Petri dish for volatility toward your brand. Even if you do everything right, there will always be people who misunderstand your values, use your products incorrectly or just generally have a chip on their shoulder.
In other cases, customer reviews on your brand's page and on seller websites will be justified – you can't make everybody like you all of the time, try though you may. Things will go wrong sometimes. The trick is not to let negative feedback stand as a barrier to forward momentum, but to embrace it for what it is. Here's why having thick skin in today's world of commerce will ultimately work in your brand's favor:
It sounds counter-intuitive, but the idea here boils down to a simple but true platitude: "If it seems too good to be true, it probably is."
According to eConsultancy, "negative reviews make the positive ones more believable." In fact, too many positive reviews may give consumers the impression that the brand and/or seller is censoring reviews or even fabricating feedback to deceive potential buyers.
Having some negative feedback peppered in actually increases conversions by 67 percent, according to Reevoo. This is primarily because they increase engagement with customers who will actually take the time to read both the good and bad, leading them deeper into the buying funnel. Of course, too many negative reviews will ultimately sully your brand's reputation. If the negative steals the spotlight from the positive, than it may be indicative of a more deeply rooted problem that needs to be addressed.
Confucius is believed to have said, "Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall." More than just a motivational one-liner, this aphorism is an extremely useful strategy for improving your brand image.
According to Inc. contributor Shane Barker, bad reviews can help you learn from mistakes. But even more importantly, they give your brand a golden opportunity to engage with customers, and to come out ahead of a bad situation.
"What matters most is how we respond to our own shortfalls."
Most customers are reasonable enough to understand that everyone makes mistakes. What matters most is how we respond to our own shortfalls. Thus, openly addressing negative consumer reviews shows prospects that you care about their experience, that you value their feedback and that you want to make a bad situation better. This alone will make consumers feel much more confident in their purchase, and assure them that if something goes wrong, they will get the help they need from the brand.
It goes without saying that you'll need complete visibility into what consumers are saying about your brand across the web. To that end, PriceSpider's Ratings & Reviews Report provides detailed snapshots of shopper feedback. These digestible summaries will help you stop sweating bad reviews, and give you the information you need to turn a negative into a positive.