You see it. That scathing review that can topple everything that you’ve built.
Negative customer reviews can somehow make all the positive comments you’ve ever gotten disappear.
It hurts. The last thing you want to have is a disappointed customer posting an online rant about how terrible your beauty brand products are.
Negative comments or results are bound to happen at some point in your beauty business journey. How you deal and approach these issues are imperative to continuing good business practices.
Customer reviews are essential because people want to see other real people on review platforms give their honest opinion.
Majority of customers look at online customer reviews for one reason: “What did someone else think of this product?”
When it comes to reviews from customers, there are several approaches you can take, especially when tackling negative feedback. Since most of these are online reviews, it’s important to prioritize how you treat and communicate with your customers on a daily basis.
No matter how frustrating negative reviews are, realize that they can have a huge negative or positive impact on your business. Though it may seem overwhelming combating the comment section filled with internet trolls, learn to discriminate between who is truly trolling your business with bad reviews, and who is offering constructive criticism to improve your business.
Yes, there are those internet trolls out there who just want to cause chaos in for no reason. So, it’s important to find ways to shrug off those people that offer no concrete help. Their negative comments to your business are just a drag to you and others. They feed off the negativity, making other people miserable; it is as simple as that.
Sometimes, however, customer reviews can be imperative to improving your business practices even if these scathing reviews sting to the core at first. Here’s how you can turn these negative issues into a positive for your beauty brand business.
Be on Top of Correcting Problems
Quick response time is key when it comes to encountering a disgruntled customer.
When you do see these complaints and comments, be sure to be on top of correcting these potential problems. Have your customer service team respond to and address these issues right away. Let the customer know that you are here to help and that you want to make things better.
If you do not take the time to address these issues, it can snowball into bad business practices that other potential customers or business partners will notice.
And then, of course, perpetuate more bad reviews.
For example, if there are negative posts on social media pages and no one addresses these comments, other potential customers or business connections may be scared off from your products due to fears of how concerns are addressed or by how lax the communication may be.
If something went wrong in shipping or there’s customer dissatisfaction with a product, would those concerns be addressed or just shoved to the side like the comments? Those are all questions people looking into your business do and will notice.
If you utilize actionable steps to turnaround a quick response time with issues, then the negative comments will be replaced by how well things bounced back.
Good Communication Plays a Pivotal Role
It goes without saying that customer communication is paramount. The person that is put first in any business is the customer/client.
Always.
Little things add up to big things and if it is not tackled first hand, it shows bad business practices. That’s why good communication plays a huge role. If there is a problem, address it at the roots with polite, professional conversation.
If responses are solely negative, delve into that more to understand, clarify, and correct the issues.
If it is pure trolling, however, shut down comments and responses for a while until things are being ironed out to assess the situation.
Needless jealousy and vindictive attacks can come out of nowhere. The idea is to be proactive and always maintain good communication as the sole prime navigator in your business.
Customer interactions help humanize the business. So, show your audience that there are humans on the other end of the screen/phone who understand their needs and can help them with their concerns.
Offer Solutions or Benefits to the Customer
Now, there are of course times where garnering positive reviews are not possible, especially if your beauty business has just started. Just do your best to be on top of customer satisfaction as your business continues to grow. With that will come the reviews that build your credibility and ethos.
Not everyone is going to like your products; that’s just a reality of business. The key is to have the majority of your reviews to be positive with just a healthy amount of negativity that is actually constructive criticism for small things.
Sometimes customers may just really not like your product; but, they will ding you less in their reviews because of how your business handled the problem. In that case, those negative comments are wins because it shows other future customers that you care about their satisfaction even if the product doesn’t work out as well as they had hoped.
New customers will at least take the risk to try it out if they are on the fence with your product because they know dissatisfaction will be handled as well as potential customer questions answered, should the need arise.
Offer solutions that are rewarding to the customer to create good will and propagate positive business practices overall.
Turn Negatives into Positives
If a product has solely negative feedback and blistering negative reviews that keep piling up, this is the time to face the harsh reality of learning to cut losses.
Basically, grow from whatever the mistake was, whether it was the product, the marketing, or anything else within the customer lifecycle. Use the criticism to create a new and better product with more amazing customer service.
This is healthy for your business to learn from. Sometimes things just don’t work out. But how you bounce back and recover is the means in which your business can still be successful.
Cutting your losses is a bitter pill to swallow. But every business experiences it at some point or another, and no doubt you will too.
Look through your reviews and negative comments and see what your customers want you to improve upon and what can be better all-around. At this point, they are your greatest ally to recover from the loss because they are offering to you what they want instead.
See this negative development and seemingly “bad experience” as a positive, and you will soon prosper from any business mishap to come back stronger than ever.
Negativity and Positivity: Two Sides of the Same Coin
As long as you are not making false claims, fake reviews, or empty promises in your marketing materials or beauty products, your beauty brand can overcome negative comments and poor reviews.
One upset customer does not negate the many satisfied customers that have encountered your brand.
On the flip side, the happy customers with positive feedback does not condone the customer complaints that occur from negative experiences with products from your brand.
If you are just trying to gain positive comments from your loyal customers, you will not be able to have awareness of how your business can progress and how big your brand can truly grow. Positive reviews can affirm that you are on the right path but the negative comments can keep you accountable as well.
Regardless, customer feedback is pertinent to every business owner.
While a frustrating experience, take the good with the bad, the positive reviews with the negative reviews.
Because you, as a business owner, will have tougher mettle because of it.
You won’t be dictated by the angry customers stating how you are the worse beauty brand ever because you know that there are happy customers who will just say the opposite.
Know your worth, regardless of what the world is saying.
But at the same time, admit when service and products could be better.
Take it as a win. It means, you get the chance to be even greater than you ever thought you could be.
And all it took were negative comments to light a fire under you.