Online reviews matter a lot, especially when you are talking about business reputation and business image. Online reviews carry the brand image and set up a clear brand impression for the audience.

Today, a majority of the online users prefer to visit the review sites and check the reviews related to the brand so as to make decisions related to their purchase. Even you have also done this before if we are not wrong.

That’s the reason why the ORM experts offering reputation repair services take online reviews so seriously. According to them, the best way to beat your competitors is by generating more reviews in favor of the brand. Maybe that’s why marketers now ask their customers to leave a review once they make their purchase.

However, in some cases, negative reviews become more prominent. That’s a different issue.

Customer reviews, both positive and negative, should be handled with proper care. Even the experts ask their clients to monitor the reviews and respond to them individually.

Keep reading the article and learn how you can respond to different customer reviews, keeping brand reputation in mind.

5 Ways you can respond to your online reviews

1. Take the help of an online tool: Online review management tools are there for help. Why don’t you use these tools to serve your purpose? Some popular tools that we like to share are Google Alerts, Social Mentions, Trackur, SentiOne, etc.With these aforesaid tools, you can keep an eye on your online reviews that are published on different platforms. The tools work with all review generating channels that include Facebook, Amazon, Google, Yelp, BBB, Yellow Pages, and many more. They crawl every channel and collect all the reviews related to your brand.
   Some of these tools like Google Alerts also allow the users to set up an alert to get notifications related to the new reviews generated on the site. For this, you just need to add your brand name and some of its misspelled variations to gather more alerts.
2. Do it manually: If not with a tool, you have to perform the job manually. We know how busy are you with your business work, but catering to your brand reputation needs is equally essential as others.Keep some time from your busy schedule every day to handle all your newly added online reviews to different platforms like Facebook, Yelp, Google, etc. You have to monitor them and give them an appropriate response that fits the review.

   Remember, there are two types of reviews one positive and another negative. Positive reviews are easy to handle but the negative ones take time. So, instead of doing multitasking, take some time out, think about what to quote, and then give them a reply.

3. Design a relevant response: Every customer has their own individual need. And if it is not fulfilled, they drop negative feedback based on their requirement. Your responsibility is to create relevant responses based on their needs.Go through the reviews and shape responses accordingly.
4. Handle negative reviews carefully: Negative reviews are hard to handle. And at the same time, they are more important than positive reviews. Because many times people scrolling down the negative reviews decide whether the brand is reliable or not. Therefore, it is necessary that you take time and then give a response, instead of replying to anything randomly.Earlier, we said, it takes time to answer to the negative reviews. Here we will like to explain why.

   In response to your negative reviews, you need to apologize for your mistake, learn what actually the customer need, understand the problem, fix the issue, and simultaneously, convince the customer to buy back again in the near future. This actually takes a proper mindset. So, think before you add a comment.

5. Use readymade replies: Are you tired of writing responses again and again? Or maybe you don’t have time to create something new, something unique for your clients!In this situation, what you can do is take help from the readymade responses that are already there on the web. Once you have time, make a list of responses relevant to your brand and combine them to use it when you require it.
   Make sure you don’t just copy-paste them. As this will hamper your brand credibility. Sometimes while using the exact words lead to horrible mistakes. So, avoid them and try to combine multiple responses to form a new one relevant to the reviews.

Wrapping Up

It doesn’t matter whether your customers have shared a positive review or have created a negative review for the brand, what matters is how you handle them.

Appreciating the positive reviews by commenting “Thank you for your feedback” or “keep purchasing again” while ignoring the negative reviews is not a great job. Such an attitude doesn’t make your brand noticeable. Instead, it creates a bad impression, exciting the visitors to take a reverse gear.

Do you want to build a strong brand reputation online and retain your position for a long period of time? Maybe the online reputation management agency gives you proper guidance.