How to Deal with a Bad Social Media Review

Depending on the social media platform, your strategy will vary. Doing what is right by the customer is always the best way to manage these issues. You always want to make the customer happy. Upon reading this you likely have a problem, but in the future it is best to satisfy your customer before they get to the posting phase of doing business with you.

In general you will want to follow these steps to deal with a bad customer review. 

1. Calm down.  Only contact the offending reviewer with a level head.
2. Try to contact the customer offline – or at least off the review site itself. Best is to be able to talk to them in person or over the phone. See if they left a comment card or if you have any contact information for them.
3. Be overly polite and nice. People have a hard time arguing with polite people. (Kill ’em with kindness!)
4. Tell them you understand their frustration or why they are upset. Empathy wins.
5. Take steps to clear up the issue and make an honest effort to do so.
6. Make sure that there is verifiable or at least anecdotal evidence the consumer or ex-employee will be able to see and believe the issue is resolved.
7. Ask them to remove or at least modify their review.
8. Explain to them that other people work there and that bad reviews are hurting their friends that work there or people who count on those jobs to support their families.
9. It’s not about you! It’s about them.  Make them think they are doing a good deed by removing their review.
10. Offer them something in return as a gesture of good faith, such as a free coffee or free meal at your restaurant or cafe, or to come in and see changes you have made that will alleviate their concerns.

If the claim if false, vulgar or inappropriate you will want to contact Yelp, Facebook, Google or whomever controls the platform of the post for resolution. Our first advice here is to try your best to work with them. DO NOT get into a fire fight with these companies. This will not work out. Persistence and understanding will be your best tools with them. If that doesn't work, contact us and we will see what we can do. There is no sure solution in these situations, but the majority can be remedied.