Follow up right

Having a loyal customer community is something a business needs to grow. Crazy enough, complaints of all kinds can help you create such a community.

Learn to talk with your customers

People become loyal to a brand when they know from practice that they are treated well. When they feel special. This means, ask them about their opinion — and show them you appreciate it whatever it is.

The most obvious manner of reacting to negative feedback is solving the problem privately, via an email, Messenger text or a call. Yet consider this: when you go into a public conversation with an angry client, you get a double profit. On one hand, the problem of the client is being solved. On the other hand, the company can get some good publicity.

First of all, potential customers will be able to see how well you can communicate with clients (even with angry ones: now, this is a true art!). Second, having some negative feedback makes the positive feedback look real, not just set up by company employees. And third, you can make nice publicity cases from the most interesting complaints.

Say, give special promo-codes to people who write the most humorous complaint. Or — even better — react with launching a new pet-friendly service type when somebody says one of your cabs was not suitable for transporting pets. This is a way to show people the company cares about their experience. It’s exactly what Bill Gates was talking about: when you see a complaint or a bad review as an improvement point, you keep people happy and get free growth ideas at the same time.

Make your weak points your strong points

You see? The main idea of handling negative reviews is dividing it and ruling it. It is important for a business to take the initiative and ask for meaningful feedback via various sources.

Remember: negative reviews are not the end of the world (neither they mean your business is bad). Just take care people feel heard — and the unhappy customers will turn into thankful community-members.