With the regular introduction of social technologies that graces us daily, there is a newer level of transparency than ever seen before. Good, bad, likes, dislikes and/or indifference towards your brand, business, product or service, is readily available on the web today. Consumers are turning to the web to share those experiences, and regardless of the channel the interaction took place, it’s making its way into the social scene.
While nobody likes to receive negative feedback or worse, a negative review for the world to see, any effort to suppress legitimate, lower-rated or negative reviews is not only unauthentic and a bad practice, but a true missed opportunity for business owners and brands to better understand their customers and deliver the products and services they want.
Embracing negative feedback allows businesses to gather insight into issues that they may not already be aware of and make improvements to enhance the experience for their customers. Taking customer feedback on board and turning it into something positive can lead to numerous benefits, such as increased retention, conversion and brand credibility.
Just as transparency is key when communicating to consumers, ensuring that the content they are sharing is authentic is just as vital when it comes to gaining and maintaining a trusting relationship with consumers or shoppers. Time and again we have seen just how damaging disingenuous feedback can be to a brand's reputation if it is not properly monitored and dealt with in a timely fashion. Just last month we saw a restaurant in the UK suffer the backlash when one of its chefs deliberately posted poor feedback about competitors on TripAdvisor. While the restaurant owner claimed the chef had done this without his knowledge, his businesses’ image will have taken a hard knock.
Consumers like to know that their voice matters and deleting a negative review or comment is not the way to demonstrate your value towards your customer base. We have seen from research that customers are more willing to put their trust in brands and businesses that aren’t afraid to be transparent. Displaying and actively addressing a negative review not only shows commitment to the customers’ needs, but also a willingness to learn and improve. Responsive brands are seen by shoppers as caring and trustworthy, which results in them having a higher sentiment toward their products or services. In fact, we have found that seeing a brand respond to a review made 41 per cent of consumers think the brand “really cares about consumers,” and 35 per cent thought the brand “has great customer service.” Perhaps more importantly, the intent of purchase doubles when a consumer sees a brand’s reply to negative feedback. Consumers who see a brand openly respond to a negative review are 186 per cent more likely to purchase than those who didn’t.
Authentic Consumer Generated Content (CGC) has enormous potential to positively influence the way a consumer feels about a brand and its offering. Encouraging these conversations should be a key consideration within a business strategy, especially given that after reading review responses which corrected product misuse and gave instructions for using the products correctly, consumers showed 157 per cent higher average sentiment toward these products than those who read the reviews without brand responses. Furthermore, when a brand response offered to refund or upgrade the reviewer’s product, consumers showed 88 per cent higher average product sentiment than those who didn’t see the response.
It’s never easy to come up against negative customer feedback, let alone to be completely open and transparent about it. But by embracing the negativity and using it as a way to improve and engage with customers, in the long term transparency will lead to a better informed, loyal and trusting customer base.
By Prelini Udayan-Chiechi, VP Marketing, EMEA at Bazaarvoice.
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