Handling Reputation Management

When you are sitting on your phone, do you always find yourself swiping to the reviews of your business? Do you spend hours going through different platforms to see what individuals are saying about your business? This can become a tedious process, which may slowly drive you crazy. However, it does not have to cause a negative impact on you, if you know how reputation management works and are able to understand how to control your reviews, both good and bad. Reputation management deals with responding to reviews (both positive and negative), removing negative reviews, and if it is not possible for them to be removed, then conduct damage control with positivity and helpful information. This is an influential process that is conducted because it helps clients decide if they want to work with a business, or not. The digital age has persuaded how someone perceives you from a screen, rather than an in-person experience. That is why it is important to understand the basis of reputation management, how to respond to reviews, how reviews can impact your business, and most importantly, what to avoid with reputation management. 

What is Reputation Management?

As stated above, reputation management is how a company responds to positive and negative reviews, removes negative reviews, and has a positive response to those that are negative. Due to the rise in the digital age, reputation management and online reputation management have become synonyms for one another. This is because a lot of information that we find on a business is now online, so businesses have to be able to watch their reputation through a screen rather than through word-of-mouth. Alongside the change in reputation management that has happened in recent years, is how it consists of replying to positive and negative feedback and answering reviews, which can impact your business. Positive reviews leave a happy and achieved feeling in our chest; however, negative reviews, not so much. Negative feedback and answering reviews that may be false or defamation is still important because it reflects back on your business. With the internet, there is no real way of knowing when reviews are being honest and trustworthy. In fact, there has been research done that claims 40% of online reviews are fake. You need to be sure to keep an eye out for these types of reviews to ensure they are not fake or competitors trying to tarnish your reputation. That is why it is important to understand what reputation management is, and how you can deal with it so that it does not impact you and your brand. 

How to Respond to Reviews for Your Dental Practice

Once you have established your businesses reputation, it is essential to focus on maintaining and protecting it. This means that as a business owner you need to understand what you can control, monitor, and protect when it relates to your reputation. It is understandable that answering reviews may make someone feel uncertain due to not wanting to sound rude or aggressive. Miscommunication may happen due to conversation being solely online, rather than in-person, which is why it is important to know how to respond to reviews. Here are some tips to keep in mind when responding to reviews:

Answer reviews promptly and with empathy

When someone posts a review, both positive and negative, it is important to answer quickly and with kindness. If someone posts a review, it is best to answer promptly because a consumer may get impatient and reflect with negativity through other actions. We recommend you show a consumer you are investing your time and efforts into solving a problem, which shows you care and reflects on how others will perceive you. 

Do not beat around the bush, answer negative reviews

Although it may be tempting to forget about the negative reviews being posted, it is crucial to just face the screen, and respond. In fact, of the 82% of people who read online reviews to learn about businesses, 97% of them are also looking for the business’s response. Stories can be spun, so it is better to address the matter when it happens to ensure that consumers do not become frustrated and start spreading their frustrations elsewhere online. 

Keep responses short and sweet

Short replies are a great way to show you care, without seeming disingenuous with overly long responses. If you start to ramble in your responses and mention your business name too much, it comes off as unnatural, and robotic. The point is to be empathetic, so that consumers know you care and are not just responding because you need to.

How NOT to Respond to a Patient's Review

It is understandable that handling business reputation is not easy; however, there are always things that can be done to prevent mistakes from happening. Some business owners prefer to take the easy way out with how they respond to reputation management and as it may seem easy in the beginning, it can decline quickly. Some things to keep in mind when handling your business’s reputation is:

• Do not pay someone to post positive reviews for your business. It can be tempting to take matters into your own hands. However, Google phishes websites that do this, which means your visibility will actually lower on search engines.
• If you have negative reviews on your business page, do not take matters into your own hands and begin to tatter back with negative responses. This will make your business seem unprofessional because nothing looks worse than someone getting angry at a review and commenting back at them in a harsh manner.
• If you plan to do it all yourself, do not lack authenticity. Make sure when creating content, and publishing posts, that they have personality, voice, and opinion. You want to share content that you are confident with and reflect who you are as a company.

We live in the digital age where people connect all over the world through their fingertips. However, this gives individuals the ability to post both positive and negative reviews about your business. The perk is being able to control and navigate what is said without seeming fake. As a business, you are able to monitor reviews and structure a plan into place to ensure that flames do not erupt when someone says something negative. Clients will understand that mistakes happen, and that we are all still human. In fact, if a business only has 5-star reviews, it could deter potential clients because they may not believe that the business is real or honest. It is perfectly fine to have some negative reviews on your page, as long as your ratings are not dropping below a 4.5 out of 5, your business will still see success. No matter what though, is that any review is better than no review. Truth be told, 90% of consumers look at reviews before visiting a business, so reputation management is important to any business and should always be acknowledged.

If you need help with your reputation management, we recommend hiring someone who specializes in the industry you are in, so they can ensure you do not fall below the standard 4.5 stars. One of the services we offer at Dr. Marketing is reputation management, which will allow us to remove any negative reviews and respond to all the positive ones. If you need help with this service, please schedule an appointment HERE or call us at (647) 466-0584. We look forward to helping your business get bright reviews!