With the internet at everyone’s fingertips 24/7, our digital culture allows for a sharing of opinions like never before.
Arguably the top social sharing site with over 1.94 billion users, Facebook business reviews can make or break your business’ reputation.
So how do you manage and respond to the community’s opinions, good and bad?
That’s exactly what we’re discussing in this article. Read on for more.
Facebook Business Reviews: To Respond or Not To Respond? That Is The Question
This answer is much simpler than Hamlet’s famous soliloquy. When it comes to Facebook business reviews, always respond.
Respond to the good, the bad, and especially the really bad. Facebook is about as public of a forum as you can get, and everyone who visits your business page will be able to see how you responded to all of the public reviews.
While reviewers have control over how public they make their posts (i.e. public, friends only, etc.), you should take care to respond consistently. It shows that individual and their social network you care about your customers.
Inactivity or lack of consistent response appears as though you’re ignoring the customer.
This is especially true if it’s a bad review. Customers want to know they’re in good hands, and avoiding a complaint makes it seem like your business just sweeps complaints under the rug without resolving the customer’s issues.
Responding to reviews is an excellent way to showcase your best business practices. It’s also a way to sneak in a little marketing, but more on that later.
Always Respond From Your Business Account
Respond to Facebook business reviews from your company account to show your professionalism.
A business account with a branded profile name and icon carries an authority that a personal account does not, even if you’re the business owner.
How to Manage Good Reviews
You may think you don’t need to respond to good reviews since the customer is already happy with their experience.
However, not responding to positive comments means missing an opportunity to build a very important aspect of a successful business. That aspect? Customer loyalty.
Build Customer Loyalty by Engaging with Positive Reviews
Responding to happy customers is a great way to engage with your community and keep those happy customers coming back.
Plus, it is a great opportunity to show off how great your business is to all the viewers of your page.
Here’s an easy 4 step template to respond effectively to happy customers:
- Thank the reviewer for their business, for taking the time to write a review or both!
- Flex a little. Take this opportunity to do a little marketing. You can highlight another menu item they might like to try next time or make sure they know about an upcoming promotion/sale, for example.
- In a good review always, always, always, mention the name of your business. This will help shape your SEO (search engine optimization) for the better. When people are looking up your business name, you definitely want this glowing example of a happy customer to pop up!
- End the response with a call to action. Invite the customer back in by saying “we look forward to your next visit!” Or you can ask them to spread the word about your product or service. This makes them feel valued, and it will increase the chances of a return visit, making them an oh-so-important loyal customer.
In short, be gracious, sneak in a little advertising, and get those good reviews all up on your search engine pages with your business name. This makes you look great to customers and customer leads alike.
How to Manage Bad Reviews
Bad reviews are not as fun as good reviews, but they’re a near inevitable reality every business faces at some point.
Thankfully, there are a few tricks you can use to show off your superior customer service and do a little reputation management, all in a quick and easy response.
Here are 4 steps to managing bad Facebook business reviews like a pro:
- Apologize and sympathize. This disgruntled customer wants to feel acknowledged for the way they were wronged by your business. This is NOT the time to get defensive. (But it can be funny when businesses don’t know this rule – click here for some bad review horror stories).
- Show that this is not the standard of your business. You want the Facebook community to know that this customer’s experience is a fluke, and not what they should expect of your business. The trick is to do this without negating your apology and sympathy. Try something like “This is not the standard we hold ourselves to…”
- DON’T mention business name! You don’t want to accidentally contribute to this review becoming more and more public. That’s like pouring gasoline on the fire! Avoid mentioning your business name to keep the issue contained and off your search results page.
- Provide a solution. Every scenario will be a little different, but you should always try to offer a helpful solution. Usually, it’s best to offer a private contact point that can handle their complaint. This is like being transferred to a supervisor, which is good for the ego of the negative reviewer because it shows you are taking their comment seriously and will do your best to salvage the situation. Even more advantageously, it brings the issue off of the public forum.
Best case scenario, the customer comes back in and has a great experience, so they update their review or remove their post altogether.
In some cases, you can ask the now happy customer to take the negative review down, but only if it feels appropriate.
The community knows that no businesses are perfect and expect to see some bad reviews. But that’s okay because now you know, it’s all about ending on a positive note.
It’s That Easy!
In short, managing your Facebook business reviews shows the community how you interact with customers, so don’t miss the opportunity to show off your excellent customer service!
PS- don’t worry about irrelevant posts on your Facebook business reviews. You can remove any that are spam, not a first-hand experience, or any other Facebook Community Standards violations.
One last thing, if you want to beef up your Facebook Business page, try adding an impressive 3D Virtual Tour.