Mastering The Art Of Writing Review Responses

Mar 25, 2024

Acquiring customer reviews on various platforms has become a valuable marketing strategy in recent years. In fact, nine out of ten customers reported that online feedback plays an important role in their purchasing decisions.

However, there is a lot more to it than just building a continuous stream of new customer feedback. It’s also necessary to reply to reviews, positive and negative alike.

Fret not, though, because learning how to write review responses that increase your opportunity to engage with a customer is relatively easy if you know what you’re doing.

Why Responding To Positive Feedback Matters

Positive feedback publicly shows who your business' “biggest fans” are. These customers practically promote your business for free, and in most cases, show the willingness to work with you again.

All things considered, these individuals will appreciate the fact you took the time out of your day to answer their message. Moreover, other customers landing on the review page will notice the same thing and are more likely to walk away with a positive impression.

Tips On Responding To Positive Reviews

When writing positive review responses, keep these things in mind to maximize the impact:

1. Say thanks

Considering someone just said something nice about your company, not thanking them would be akin to poor manners.

Express your gratitude to show them you appreciate their kind words and don’t shy away from making it personal. You can reference specific things that occurred while they were making a sale or visiting your business - the reviewer’s face will instantly light up when they see your reply.

2. Keep it short and simple

Sadly, review responses aren’t your time to show off your prose, F. Scott Fitzgerald. Rather, keep everything concise to ensure the message is as impactful as possible.

3. Respond quickly

If it takes you weeks or months to write something, it will seem as if you don’t care about what your customers think about you.

Something as simple as responding within 24 hours can mean the world and may make your review responses much more effective. Plus, you’ll stay top-of-mind, which is extremely important in all facets of digital marketing.

4. Add a call-to-action

By crafting a perfect retort, you can gain more mileage from a single review by implementing a call-to-action. This could be anything - ask them to follow your business page on social media, tell their friends about your offerings, and so on.

5. Share the review

Sharing praise you received on social media pages or your website may compel passive followers to give you a chance.

For example, sharing reviews on your Facebook page is a great way to let your audience know what to expect when they opt for your business.

Why Responding To Negative Reviews Matters

On the flip side, many businesses struggle to manage negative feedback. Considering most consumers trust online feedback as much as they trust recommendations from friends and family, mitigating the damage should be your top priority.

While you can’t remove these pieces of content from the internet, the way you handle criticism can make all the difference in minimizing the impact negative feedback can have on your reputation.

Doing so will build trust, improve retention rates and your public perception, as well as help your SEO rankings.

Here are some tips you can use to improve the quality of your review responses:

1. Keep your cool

No matter how mean the reviewer is, never match their energy. Remember that you’re answering on behalf of your business so you should remain professional at all times.

Even though criticism may be a result of simple miscommunication or completely unwarranted, keep your cool and try your best to sympathize with the customer scorned.

2. Acknowledge the reviewer

After taking in a few breaths and counting to five, it’s time to acknowledge the criticism and apologize. This not only helps defuse the situation but also sends a positive message to people reading the exchange, shedding a positive light on you.

3. Take it offline

Some reviewers may go to great lengths to paint a full picture of the experience. Others will provide minimal detail. Because of the lack of information, it’s easy to see reviews and negative comments dissolve into public shouting matches.

If this is the case, offer to take the conversation offline and attempt to work with the customer to provide a solution to the situation that works well for all parties involved.

Try to offer an incentive to inspire the customer to give you a second chance. A discount or a coupon can be very helpful in showing just how much you care about their experience. Who knows? They may even agree to remove the review if you successfully make amends.

4. Do take it to heart

While we suggested not to lose your cool, you should take each negative review seriously. Frustrated customers can provide valuable insight into potential areas of improvement.

Furthermore, you may even notice a few patterns emerging in multiple reviews, which is a good sign you should address these recurring issues to avoid further customer difficulties.

Is There A Faster Way To Write Review Responses?

It’s the 21st century and automation is commonplace, especially when it comes to repetitive tasks. The most crude way to do this is to compile a number of templates, which you can then customize and paste as your response.

This can be a good short-term solution, but it still doesn’t eliminate the repetitiveness of the task at hand. Even worse, the customers will quickly figure out what you’re doing.

The best way to approach this conundrum is to use ReviewArm.

Along with assisting you in automating your review generation efforts, you can also leverage it to boost the quality of your review responses. Using a cutting-edge AI language model and machine learning, ReviewArm can quickly analyze the content of the review and come up with a perfect response in a matter of seconds.

This is a game-changing feature as it’s a lot more powerful than old-school templates with each response being unique.

Taking into account how much this software simplifies the online reputation management of your business, including ReviewArm in your digital marketing stack is practically a no-brainer.