Print on demand companies have to deal with numerous customer feedbacks and requests. Within this customer analytics flow, not everyone realizes how to respond to a negative feedback and assure their customers of coming back. While the customer's criticism might be undeserved, the necessity to answer in a grounded, polite manner requires some skill and psychological preparation. In this field, you may need some special writing, management, and emphatic qualities to do it correctly and bring out the best from them. In the end, a negative review experience is a lesson that can teach us to become a better and more credible business partner. The following material will observe how to respond to negative feedback in print on demand businesses and what strategies to choose while handling negative comments.
Customer service tactics with work on negative reviews
How to turn negative reviews to positive
Many things can influence customer satisfaction. According to market experts, such feedback should always call to action and learn from. In e-commerce, shipping delays, misunderstandings, wrongful prints or item colors, or even product quality are the most frequent negative review types. In this case, the business owner can estimate them as a worst-case-scenario and seek potential improvements to avoid them in the future. In other cases, the product may not suit the customer's expectations or fit them in the way they wished. In the beauty industry, any kind of cream/shampoo and other care products may not be suitable for certain types of people’s skin or hair and others. Thus, bad reviews provide an interesting insight into the potential product pitfalls the shop may not even know yet. That is why it is better to pay attention to bad reviews and even single out some of them.
As anything can go wrong, be ready to handle any complaints type. In print on demand, the possible issues with shipping, tracking, and receiving of the ordered parcel may frustrate the potential clients. Not all businesses of this type allow parcel tracking on their page that causes a lot of concerns and issues related to quality feedback. Thus, print on demand companies should provide cautious order fulfillment to avoid negative comments in the first place. Many people think that bad reviews are connected with competitors or haters and do not understand how to handle negative comments. Still, we have brought some of the useful ways to maximize your customer trust and credibility through using these review types for your advantage.
1. Show your attitude. Apparently, many people would love to respond to a rude or untruthful review with all their eloquence. This is precisely what you should not do first. Some research will help to find out if the review was based on an opinion or a fact. In the first case, a polite and moderate answer like "We appreciate your honesty…" will show that you care for the service you provide. In the second case, research the very situation, how the low-quality service occurred, and what you can do to avoid it.
2. Be proactive - offer something. If the shipment was delayed or inventory problems took place, offer a discount or a present with the next order. Be empathetic and try to get into your customer's shoes. Phrases like "We are sorry to hear…" or "We regret to inform you" can assist in showing that you treat the complaint correctly. Discounts, coupons, feedback requests, and unpacking auctions can benefit the work with negative reviews and show others that the problems are solved. After that, you can freely ask your customers to change their reviews for the better.
3. Answer as quickly as you can. According to the Harvard Business Review, customers expect their feedback to be processed as fast as possible. If you do not have such a possibility to investigate the case, ask for a time like, "Could you please wait until we solve this issue?” This will buy you some time to respond and emphasize that you put some effort into problem-solving. However, do not indulge in the ready-made answers. Watch out for templates, as they will give your response an impersonal and robotic tone. If you do not use a chatbot, try your best to write live responses without excessive samples from business letters.
As you’ve acquainted yourself with business strategies to manage bad reviews, you may ask – what good can become of them. In many cases, negative reviews can become an efficient shake-up to such positive outcomes as:
1. Become better. When you deal with negative customer experience, you streamline and improve your services. As a result, they become better and more efficient for future orders. Thus, if you get some negative reviews at the beginning of your business, their number will decrease as you get enough experience and learn from your mistakes. For example, if you are faced with an out-of-stock problem, observe when your certain products have the most client demand to avoid delays (holiday season, special occasions, national holidays).
2. Build trust. Print on demand experts explain that some customers deliberately choose negative reviews over positive ones to estimate their efficiency. Therefore, the attention to the negative reviews and their correction afterward is highly crucial for the company's reputation. The faster you respond to a negative review, the less negative reactions you will receive within the next 24 hours. As a result, Google prioritizes such attentive companies higher over those who fail to respond properly. So, the timely response and handling of the negative comments efficiently work for your popularity and promotion by the search engines.
To conclude, it is always useful to know how to manage negative reviews. They allow you to estimate your productivity and service quality through the eyes of others and find out how to improve your business operations. The major principle of dealing with negative comments is not attributing them to any other personal issues other than business and avoiding treating them harshly or impolitely. If a review has formidable grounds, make everything you can to avoid such situations in the future. Investigate carefully what went wrong and how this situation can serve as a lesson. Treat bad reviews carefully, as they build trust between you and your customers and make for some of them to return. As people aim to stay loyal to the brand, they started their cooperation by making sure you provide the best customer service to new and already established clients.
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