A bad review can make for a terrible start to your day—and could start a series of unfortunate events for your company. Bad reviews can affect your overall review average, which could impact your ranking on a search engine review page (SERP). Fortunately, managing client communications upstream can stop negative reviews before they even occur.

Nipping It in the B…ad Review

By the time a bad review appears, it can be too late to minimize some of its damage. The goal is to keep the scathing criticism from ever appearing in the public eye and dissuading new clients from contacting you. Multiple opportunities abound to address the hurt or negative feelings of a pet owner—before the venting happens on review sites. Let us make a list of a few places where conversations can happen before the review: 

• Depending on where your practice is located, you may or may not gain feedback at the time of the appointment. In Minnesota, for example, the culture makes face-to-face confrontation less likely. If you are in a state where people voice their opinions face-to-face, that is an ideal time to address a concern.

• The gift of the internet is that it provides multiple places and ways to connect with others throughout the world. The downfall for a business is that there are multiple places and ways where people can discuss your hospital. Keeping track of these conversation locations may seem overwhelming. Luckily, Beyond Indigo Pets offers Online Reputation Management (ORM) services to help you stay on top of all your reviews.
• The practice’s own communications must be carefully crafted. What narrative are you sharing in every email, newsletter, and marketing piece? Is it consistent? Think about large corporations like McDonald’s. Everywhere you see the brand, you see the exact same message. Based on that message, consumers know what to expect. A unified message keeps clients calm because there is nothing to rattle expectations, which can help you avoid negative interactions.

Generating Review Requests Early

Sometimes people just need to feel heard after a bad experience. If you can capture someone’s “review” before they head to legitimate review sites, you can prevent someone from sharing negative feelings in a public forum. Send out a survey that asks questions about a client’s experience. This type of survey gives people a chance to vent directly to the business. To keep on the up-and-up with the review platforms, you must include direct links to the review sites on the survey; however, these options can be optimally placed on the page. 

Negative Review Management

If a negative review lands like a rotten fish in a market stall, ignoring it should not be an option. Choose the calmest person in your organization to read through the review. Pull out the points that are facts and any that are reactionary. If the review is from a former employee, there are ways to have Google consider it for removal by flagging the review. If you know which customer left the review, give them a call, and see if the situation can be resolved. Then, reply to the review with, “Thank you for talking with us today. We look forward to seeing you in the future.” If you do not know who it is, ask the reviewer to give you a call and leave your phone number. Say that you’d like to discuss their experience and that you would be happy to work toward a resolution. We just discussed this with the SCVMA members in April 2023. If you want to watch the webinar on this topic, please click here. 

Need help or just want software to manage the review process on your own? Give us a call at (877) 244-9322 or fill out our form to get started.