How to Handle Negative Reviews for Your Online Shop

Handling negative online reviews is one of the most important things your online shop can do to control its online reputation. Although they can be seen as a nightmare for online shops, negative reviews can be an opportunity to shape your brand image and optimise your business.

Make no mistake: it’s best to avoid negative reviews. However, for 99% of e-commerce businesses, they are inevitable. In this article, we will talk about how to handle those negative reviews.

Why negative reviews matter (and kind of don’t)

Negative reviews are actually an important part of the online shopping experience. Some customers specifically seek them out, so not having any negative reviews might seem a bit fishy to some shoppers.

Of course, context matters and some negative reviews can be more “damaging” than others. That’s why it’s important to reply to reviews, both positive and negative… but especially the negative ones! We’ll touch on some of those tips later in the article.

It’s important to remember that customer reviews are not just a marketing tool. You should also look at reviews as valuable feedback to help you improve your business. If certain elements of your business come up again and again in negative reviews (e.g. packaging), it might be time to make some adjustments.

The point is that negative reviews matter for many reasons, so don’t go crazy if you receive a few bad ones. After all, they might even help your business (in more ways than one). The important thing is how you use them to make your business better.

In rare cases, you can even use negative reviews to improve your marketing. If you work in a niche industry with a very particular target audience, a negative review might even be a positive thing. Check out the advertisement below from Snowbird for a perfect example:

How to reply to negative reviews

Make sure to reply to reviews, especially when the occasional negative one arrives. Here are the best tips to keep in mind when replying:

Personalise your response: No one wants to read a cookie-cutter reply when they’re upset.
Keep calm: Think of this interaction as a public display of your customer service. You’re the business, so you need to remain professional. Don’t reply when you’re angry.
Stay positive: Be polite and optimistic that you’ll find a resolution to the problem.
Empathise: Show them understanding and compassion for the situation.
Be transparent and honest: If you messed up, admit it. Acknowledge the issue either way and be open about current issues and potential solutions.

Stay engaged and make sure other potential customers who come across this interaction walk away thinking you handled it professionally.

Replying to negative reviews is always a good idea, but replying to positive ones is also smart. For a deep dive into replying to all kinds of reviews, check out our free whitepaper:

Boost your overall ratings

If you’ve had a string of negative reviews in a row and your online reputation is taking a hit on Google and other popular platforms, you’ll want to be proactive in collecting more reviews and boosting that overall rating.

Ask happy customers for reviews

Unhappy customers are more likely to leave unsolicited reviews. If you want to balance them out with more positive reviews, you’ll have to proactively ask your happy customers for them.

Timing

When sending review invitations, timing is everything. Those emails asking for reviews should be sent out at an optimal time. It might take some experimentation from your side, but some factors to consider when calculating the wait time:

Delivery times: What is the average delivery time for your products?
Nature of products: Depending on your niche, your products might be used immediately or after a few weeks.

The review request should arrive after the product has arrived, but before the customer has lost enthusiasm for their new product.

Direct customers to leave reviews where you need them

When users research your company, star ratings may appear on a few popular reviews platforms. You can send users to open review platforms like Google Reviews or Trustpilot, for example.

Trusted Shops is a popular reviews platform that displays store ratings in Google search results. With their tool, The Reputation Manager, you can easily send reviews to these popular review platforms, ensuring a harmonised online reputation throughout Google.

Common mistakes to avoid

When it comes to negative reviews, here are a few of the most common mistakes to avoid.

Ignoring negative reviews

Shutterstock/fizkes

The last thing you should do is ignore negative reviews. At the very least, you can reply to a review and tell the customer that you’ll reach out to them privately to resolve the matter. This way, you can publicly acknowledge the review while taking the rest of the conversation behind the scenes.

If your company gets hundreds (or thousands) of reviews per month and it’s getting difficult to reply to them all, the Trusted Shops Smart Review Assistant is exactly what you need. With the help of A.I., you can respond to every review with relevant information in a customer-friendly tone in a fraction of the time. Integrated seamlessly into the Trusted Shops platform, you’ll always maintain control of what gets published. Learn more by clicking below:

Not displaying reviews on your website

It's great to have a trusted reviews provider like Trusted Shops host all your reviews on their shop profile pages. When shoppers research your company on Google, 5 stars will show up next to your shop name. However, it's equally important to display those reviews directly on your website as well.

Here are a few of the most important reasons why:

You allow visitors to research your company’s reputation without needing to leave your website.
You can reply directly to your customers on your website.
You can make sure they are verified customers.
You can analyse your reviews more easily when you have full access to them.
You build trust with your site’s visitors by being transparent.

Displaying those reviews on your website with easy-to-integrate widgets can bring an extra touch of trust to your website. When first-time visitors see your homepage, they'll know you're proud of your reputation because you're displaying customer feedback prominently.

Recommended reading:
Why Do My Google Stars Not Appear?

Responding defensively and emotionally

Responding is good, but as we discussed earlier, it must be done the right way. Don’t respond overly-defensively. Don’t respond with emotions or by pointing fingers. Remember to take a deep breath and always be professional.

Long-term review management strategies

If you’re in the e-commerce business for the long haul, it makes sense to set up a proper strategy for negative reviews.

Monitor incoming reviews and overall ratings

Someone on your team should be monitoring new reviews coming in. That person should probably be keeping an eye on the overall ratings found on the internal system, but also externally (i.e. Google).

Setting up protocols

Create a process for what happens when negative reviews come in. For example, who should be alerted? Who should reply to the review? Should there be some research on this particular purchase before replying?

Analyse reviews

Identifying those patterns and repeated complaints is very important for optimising your business. Analysing all your reviews can be a way of confirming whether an incident was a one-time thing or if it is recurring.

If your shop collects thousands of reviews every year, gathering those insights can be difficult and time-consuming. A tool like the Sentiment Analysis automatically analyses all your Trusted Shops reviews and highlights the most common topics found in them. This helps you quickly identify the strongest and weakest points of your business.

Conclusion

You may not want to be drowning in negative reviews, but they can provide you with an opportunity to showcase your customer service while also giving you direct feedback on how to improve your business.

11/10/23