My June newsletter was about what to do when you receive a review that’s not awesome. It SUCKS to get a bad review, especially when you know there were specific circumstances that lead to it (we aren’t always on our A game, they may have had a bad day, it was an impossible experience, etc.) A good friend of mine responded with another excellent point…
Gwen Montoya always points out that when you respond to a bad review, you are not just responding to that person; you are responding to future clients, who will see this interaction weeks/months/years down the line, and formulate an impression of you and your business based on how you handled this client’s comments.
This is SUCH an excellent point I wanted to make sure to share with you. It can be tempting to respond to a review and state your case. And occasionally you may decide that’s the right fit. BUT before you hit post on that response, think about Gwen’s point. What’s this going to look like to potential clients down the road?
My guess is most of the time you may be better off asking great clients to leave positive reviews for you to counter balance the one bad review.
How do you respond to reviews? Do you?
With the Airbnb reviews we review the guest and the guest reviews us: neither get to see the others review until both sides are done.
I usually have a ‘feel’ for how the guest will review us.
In the case of a recent ‘bad’ review we had anticipated:
1. I take time to shake it off.
2. I had Fred write his review, which he sent to me, I write mine, we compare, agree and post.
3. Then our Feedback to the Guest is publicly viewed and before and after this guest we have lots (after hosting 5 years in October 2017) of glowing and positive reviews.
4. Then this shows two things: that you cannot please everyone no matter what and we have a 4.9 rating.
Kym 😉