The Internet allows every individual to have a voice, and when it comes to online reviews of businesses, these opinions can be extremely helpful or detrimental. As an online business owner, you need to be on top of reviews written about your company, and you also need to know how to properly manage your business’s reputation in order to prevent damage and keep attracting new customers.

Remember How Visible Reviews Really Are

Some business owners fail to realise just how visible customers’ reviews of their companies really are. Ignoring the fact that reviews of your company will show up in search results can have a direct impact on your profits. For example, if there are a lot of reviews written by many different people about your business and they are sharing links to these reviews on their respective social media pages and blogs, search engines will pick up on this and rank them high in search results, whether those reviews are negative or positive. And the last thing that you would want, as a business owner, is for your company to be publicised negatively the moment someone searches for it by name.

Use Negative Reviews to Improve

Negative reviews are bound to happen, as you certainly can’t please everyone. But how you react to these negative reviews is key in improving the reputation of your online business. If you do find negative reviews about your company online, don’t get too discouraged or angry. Instead, use negative feedback as a way to improve the ways that you do business, especially if a customer is angry because of a mistake on the part of your employees or because of the way that you currently conduct business. This will ensure that you never make the same mistakes again and risk even more negative reviews in the future.

Sometimes you can actually reply to negative reviews that you find online. Try to keep a level head and never fly off the handle. Also, never adopt a condescending attitude towards the customers either. Instead, apologise and let them know you can remedy the problem if they contact you directly and that you’re doing your best to improve your company so it won’t happen again.

Don’t Be Afraid to Ask for Positive Reviews

As an online business owner, you shouldn’t be afraid of encouraging your customers to write positive reviews about their experiences with your products and services. If a customer was really happy with your company for any reason and has expressed that to you via your social media page, for example, thank them and ask them if they would be willing to take the time to post a positive review on Yelp, for example. This will help increase the number of positive reviews you receive and generate more traffic to your site once people read about how happy customers are with your company.

Avoid Negative Reviews in the First Place

You may be able to avoid negative reviews altogether by making it easy for customers to contact you with complaints, always using a positive tone when communicating with them, and offering things like refunds or replacements when they’re dissatisfied.