Free Marketing: 101 Low and No-Cost Ways to Grow Your Business, Online and Off

CHAPTER 3

TURN BAD REVIEWS INTO FREE MARKETING

In this chapter I cover:

• How to turn negative customer experiences into positives for your business.
• Why and when you should encourage customers to complain.
• How I've implemented these ideas myself with success.

TURN NEGATIVE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCES INTO POSITIVES

Complaints happen. It's inevitable that one will be posted online about you or your business.

The good news is that an online customer complaint can often be turned into a positive if caught quickly and dealt with in a friendly, accommodating way.

You not only need a plan in place to monitor the web for comments about you and your business (as discussed in Chapter 2), but you also need to be prepared to respond quickly and professionally to any negative comments. Make sure someone is assigned the task of monitoring the web for comments left about you and your business and also task them with responding appropriately.

Ideally you have several loyal customers who are also willing and ready to come to your defense when the occasion arises. If you run a solid business and have close contact with top customers it's a reasonable request to point out an unfair negative comment to your loyal fans and ask that they respond by leaving honest feedback on top of the offending comment.

Nothing defuses a negative remark like a gang of loyal customers following up in the same forum with several positive remarks specifically addressing the concerns of the unsatisfied customer.

Oftentimes ...