Most of the businesses publish their customer reviews not only on the website but also on third-party resources, so-called review websites. You can find many of them throughout the web, such as Yelp, TrustPilot, ConsumerSearch, SiteJabber, BBB and more. Once you create a profile on these websites, you can easily collect customer reviews and promote them.

However, it happens that someone leaves a negative testimonial that ruins the whole story of your perfect profile. What to do next?

There are several options:

Option #1: Ask the website for removal

You can definitely contact the review website and explain to them that a negative review has nothing to do with your business. Of course, it is easier to do that when you have a perfect profile and a lot of nice testimonials.

Besides, it is not as fast as that. You will be involved in a dispute with the person who left that ugly review. So be ready to stand firm and to expose your arguments. You must be really sure you are right in this situation. In other case, you are not supposed to win the dispute.

Option #2: Contact your customer and apologize

Another way to remove a bad testimonial is to contact directly the person in charge. You should be very polite and accurate to produce an influence. The one who reviewed you is definitely ready to defend his opinion. It is really hard to change it and to have a positive reaction.

The most important thing that you should NOT do is to offer money for this. People would doubt you truthful reasons and will be even angrier.

Try to understand why this testimonial appeared on your page, what was the reason for that. You can search for more information about this person and how it was related to your business throughout the web. You can also open client files and read this client project in details in order to have arguments later.

If you think that all said by this person is not true, you can kindly ask to remove the testimonial explaining your point of view. On the other hand, if you found some logic and you feel guilty, it is high time to introduce different tactics into the conversation. It is also a part of the testimonial marketing strategy.

When you are ready to deal with the embarrassment and criticism on the other side, you can contact your unsatisfied client. The customer is king, don’t forget it. You do not necessarily accept what he says, but you may seem so in order to raise his satisfaction. It is absolutely required to say that you are sorry and you would be grateful to know how to fix the situation.

Option #3: Make your way to resolve the misunderstanding

The first mistake you could do is starting to defend yourself or being aggressive. Just imagine how thoroughly your customer wrote this testimonial because he would like to be heard. So, try to hear what he says now when discussing the result produced. You should always maintain high ground even if the client tries to unbalance you throughout the conversation. It is not a problem if you did not succeed to persuade your customer. Some people can be really stubborn. The most important that you were helpful, polite when putting forward your argumented objections.

If you are lucky enough, you can turn negative into positive. Believe it or not, negative reviews can fantastically give your business a perfect PR opportunity. The priority is the language you are using and the kindness and understanding of your client. You can act sad and surprised to make your customer feel that he is an important part. And he definitely is.

Option #4: Use reputation management to overcome a bad testimonial

Reputation management is a refined way to grow your business, it is a necessary part of reputation strategy. It is not just about fighting and discussing. It is a clever way to create fresh positive testimonials and to move down a bad one. It is an extra method to fix the situation when nothing worked and a bad review is still there.

How can you do that?

You just add new customer reviews gradually and implement SEO optimization and instruments to see how they work. When you combine both things – dealing directly with your client and working on reputation – it will have a more favorable effect on your business.