Dealing With Negative Online Feedback
Negative online reviews are a serious concern to both consumers and
business owners alike, but you are not at their mercy if you take action
to defend your business online. This tip will outline steps you can
take to improve your online presence.
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The first thing to do is simple, do not panic! Fight the urge to
remove the Google Map listing from your eVetsite "Contact Us" page. This
only stops people going to your site from getting to the Google Maps
page but it does nothing to stop anyone else from getting to the Google
Maps site via their phone, computer browser, etc. You want to address
the issue, not gloss over it.
- If the negative review comes from a 3rd party site like
Yelp.com, CitySearch.com, InsiderPages.com, etc. you can contest the
review directly at the source. Google Maps aggregate content from other
sites so contacting Google will be ineffective.
- If the review comes from a Google user, their name will appear
in the review. It's a long shot but you can attempt to sway them with a
discount or some sort of incentive. These clients might change their
mind if presented with honest outreach from your practice.
- Looking forward, you want to get good reviews posted from your
clients to offset possible negative reviews in the future. You should
encourage current clients to post positive reviews and select "no" next
to the question "Was this review helpful?" if they believe that the
review isn't accurate. Link them directly to Yelp, maps.google.com, etc
via your newsletters or coupons. Google displays about a half dozen
reviews on the first page of your Local Business Listing. If you
generate positive reviews, it can move the bad review to another page.
Remember to not panic, do your best to counter the negative reviews or
placate the reviewer, and focus as much as you can on getting every
satisfied client to post positive reviews. As always if you have any
questions we are here to help!
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