The Positive of Negative Reviews

Negative online reviews hurt. They can hurt our businesses and may even hurt our egos. We hate being told where we personally fall short. It’s human nature. 

Can you imagine if we were PUBLICLY judged and reviewed on our worst personal moments in life?

“Hey, this one time, when you were 14 you ditched me for those “other” friends and therefore I can never trust you again. Bad friend. Would not recommend.”

To many of us, that’s what negative online reviews of our business can feel like -- personal shots. “How could they say that about me/us!?”. Admittedly, it’s tough to do, but what if we were able to leverage the criticism and negative review to improve our service/business? 

If 14 year old us never learned from our mistakes, how far would we have gotten in life? 

Sure, you want to mitigate the negative impact of bad reviews, that’s natural, but perhaps the best way to do that is reflect on them and admit to ourselves that we, in fact, do have a deficiency. Can we fix the issue, and thus, avoid more negative reviews in the future? 

Looking back, of course 14 year old us would have done a few things differently, but whatever those mistakes and shortcomings were, they certainly don’t define who we are today (if they do, there’s likely a better blog for you than this one). Nor do a handful of negative reviews have to define our businesses. Learn from mistakes, improve, and then bury those negative reviews with newer, positive reviews. For more info, check out Bury Negative Reviews.

According to some researchers a few negative reviews are actually a good thing and can build trust with future customers. On top of that, they don’t have to last forever. By generating more and more positive reviews, the negative reviews “disappear” (get hidden below new positive reviews) and now you can focus on fixing the issues that caused the bad review in the first place. 

On top of learning from negative reviews it’s important to also, at times, laugh at them (even if it hurts). As much as you try, you can’t please everyone. And frankly, sometimes the bad reviews are funny. In fact, let’s laugh at them together. Share them with us here Good Bad Reviews. And be sure to follow us on the socials to laugh/commiserate together.

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In conclusion, it’s easy to see the positive side of negative reviews, but who wouldn’t want to avoid them altogether? What if you could learn from mistakes before they ever get publicly posted? With Swell Survey, it’s possible. 

Swell Survey allows you to send simple, automated surveys to your customers via text or email, to get real, honest feedback, and use said feedback to improve your business—whether it’s your facilities, product offerings, or employee training. You can customize both your questions and your recipient groups, or send standard benchmark surveys. Text surveys are so simple that customers will actually do it. 

Improvement before a negative review has a chance to get posted. Crazy concept.