A significant part of running an e-commerce business is managing feedback. Positive feedback is welcome and appreciated, but how do you deal with negative feedback without hurting your business?
Both positive and negative feedback can be constructive for your business. Positive feedback is good for your business and will tell you what your customers love about it. However, when it comes to negative feedback, a lot of new business owners tend to handle it defensively.
When you run an e-commerce business, negative feedback isn’t necessarily a bad thing. While some scathing reviews can have adverse effects on your business, negative feedback can help you improve your weaknesses and increase your website’s credibility.
Positive and negative feedback are useful survey tools, but if you want to manage the latter well, here are some things you should know:
1. Evaluate the review
Not all bad reviews are real or legitimate. Sometimes, negative feedback can come from spammers, trolls, or people that have misunderstood something about your business. To make sure that the feedback is a genuine one, check the account of the reviewer. If it’s evident that they are trolling, you can choose to delete the review or report it.
2. Make timely responses
Responding to negative feedback promptly will make the complainant feel that their opinions are valued, and thus increase the chances of them continuing business with you. Moreover, it will demonstrate to other customers that your business is prompt when it comes to managing concerns.
It is recommended to respond publicly before taking the conversation to a private message. From there, you can speak with the reviewer and address their concerns privately.
3. Find out what went wrong
Naturally, you will need to find out the cause of the negative feedback so you can better figure out how to handle it. Upon analyzing the review, identify the problem and then check what was the cause behind it.
For an e-commerce business, common reasons for negative feedback are late deliveries, poor customer service, and subpar product quality. If the problem was caused by an error on your part, take note of how you can prevent it in the future.
4. Come up with solutions
After figuring out the problem and its cause, determine what you can do for the customer. For example, if they leave a bad review because of late order, offer free shipping for their next one. If the product they received came defective or broken, offer to replace it with a new one free of charge.
Offering solutions is an integral part of customer recovery. Not only will these strategies solve the problem, but it will also decrease the chances of you losing that customer forever.
5. Remain polite
As we said earlier, some business owners tend to handle bad feedback defensively. However, no matter how unreasonable, rude, or misleading the comment is, always make sure to respond in a polite manner. Even if you leave a dismissive response to an unreasonable review (for example, a customer complaining about deliveries that were late because of a natural disaster), remain polite or courteous.
Managing feedback is one of the most challenging parts of running an e-commerce business. But with these tips, you can handle negative feedback better and turn them into something constructive for your business.
