NEW Monthly NRHA Communciation - Dealing with Online Reviews

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Nearly 90 percent of consumers check online reviews to learn more about a product, service or business, yet most businesses owners don’t know how to leverage the power of a positive review or mitigate the negative effects of a poor one. Use these tips to take the right steps when dealing with online reviews:

1: Highlight the Positives. It’s important to learn how to take advantage of positive online reviews beyond what pops up on a Google search or Yelp posting. By collecting and organizing reviews, you can re-purpose them for other marketing collateral, website content or social media.    

2: Wait to Respond. When a legitimate negative review appears, it’s not uncommon to get a little defensive. To take the edge off your anger, wait a day before responding. In that cooling off period, you’ll calm down and have the chance to think about or even investigate the reason for the negative review. This will help you formulate an action plan before responding to the poster.  

3: Respond Gracefully. If you feel a negative review is false, respond gracefully but set the record straight. If you deserve the negative review, respond with how you are taking action to fix the problem and ask the reviewer to send you an email. By taking the discussion offline, you can resolve the issue with that individual personally.  

4: Don’t Forget. If you’ve addressed a negative review successfully and ultimately appeased the customer, it would be easy to forget about it and move on. Instead, keep revisiting the issue to ensure your solution was truly successful for a year or more. Not doing so could mean another bad review from the same customer telling others you didn't keep your promises.  

5: Keep Track of Platforms. Although Google is the most popular location for reviews, users must have a Gmail or Google account to post reviews, so it’s important to check other web browsers, such as Yelp, to keep up with what those customers have to say.

WRLA IN PARTNERSHIP WITH NRHA

The goal of the North American Retail Hardware Association is to help independent hardware and home improvement retailers become better and more profitable merchants through a wide array of educational and training programs, financial management resources, and human resource tools that are all available online. WRLA members get unlimited access to a full range of training and management services when they join NRHA through the WRLA. CLICK HERE for more Information.