Local Market Monopoly

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Clarence Fisher: Hey, what's up. It's Clarence Fisher. Welcome back to Local Market Monopoly. In this episode, we're going to discuss how a negative customer client-patient review does not have to spell disaster for your business reputation. We're going to show you how to respond immediately. After finding that negative review online and give you the right approach, a way that you can transform a negative review into an opportunity to showcase your exponential customer service. We're also going to talk about how to incorporate a system to manage those reviews. So you never miss a chance to protect and enhance your online reputation. You're going to love it. We'll be right back.

Intro: You're listening to Local Market Monopoly with Clarence Fisher, uncovering the tools tactics, and strategies. The most successful small businesses use to dominate their local market and own the block.

Clarence Fisher: Okay. Welcome back. And okay, so this is what we're going to do. We're going to take a closer look at how to respond to negative reviews. I know when you see it a negative review, you kind of see red, right? You get angry, especially, especially if someone you've never probably done business with, but negative reviews are just not fun. When you see them, your heart just kind of like jumps, but here is what we want to do. First of all, we don't want to panic. Don't panic. Okay. Second of all, don't take it personally.No matter how, no matter how bad it is, let's not take it personally. A lot of times and people try to kind of slander you, right? But we have to not take it personally. And then next you want to just kind of try to understand and understand that you can respond to that review in a way that makes your business look like a winner.

Clarence Fisher: It was a little bit ago that I first started. It hit me. It down me and I started telling my clients, this is that the review that you're responding to when you're responding to a negative review, you're not responding to that person. You are responding to everybody else who reads that. And a lot of them, most of them are future prospects for you, future clients for you. So you want to make sure that you use empathy when you respond, acknowledge their complaint, apologize, tell them that you love the chance to make it better for them. And here's the catch, what if you didn't do anything wrong? What if you did seriously? What if you did absolutely nothing wrong? And they just had a bad day? Well, you want to do the same thing. Feel empathy, acknowledge their complaint, and apologize. I know, I know.

Clarence Fisher: Apologize and ask if you have a chance to make it better. I'll tell you I had a client, he's a plumber and we were going through this and I gave him a review response. You know what I'll do? I'm going to post that in the show notes here, a link to the, to the review response templates that we use first got those from a man that was years ago, David Sprague put me onto that. Yeah. So we would have this list of templates of what you would say or could say, make your own to answer a negative review. And so I'm walking my client through this and he is like, no, I don't feel, I don't know. I don't feel that I don't, that's not me. It's not a, I mean he's a nice guy, but again, I mean, you get people that are complaining about just the craziest things.

Clarence Fisher: I'm like, well, what you want to do is be empathetic and apologize to him. And a long story short, he called me probably, I don't know, three weeks later, he went through his reviews and he answered all of them. Another thing you want to do is you want to answer all the reviews, even the positive ones you want to just, you want to have that dialogue and let people know that you're paying attention to what's happening. But when you get to your bad ones, follow the system there. And again, I'm going to give you a download link in the show notes that you can download and have all kinds of different templates that you can use and create and call your own. But he got a call from a guy that said, man, you have a whole bunch of reviews. And he did. He has a whole bunch of reviews.

Clarence Fisher: And he said, yeah, yeah, we do. And they said, but it wasn't your good ones that made me call you. He was like, what it was, it was, it was the way you handled the bad ones. And I thought, man, for a person to handle those reviews like that, that's definitely someone I want to work with. And he gave him a $4,000 piece of business by the way that he handled the negative reviews. And so that's what I've given you right now. Again, I'm telling you when you handle the negative reviews, it's not the person that you're, that has given you the review. Don't go back, pull the transaction, record, and post all the transaction records and try to prove that person wrong. I'm telling you if you do that, you're, you're losing business. Just kind of an example of what you'd like to, how you want to respond.

Clarence Fisher: You just want to say, Hey, dear, their name, or Hey, their name, thank you for sharing your feedback. We're so sorry that your experience didn't meet your expectations that you have. Sometimes, we miss it. It's uncommon though, but some, but sometimes it does happen and we need to do better. Could you do this? Could you do this for me? Could you please contact and put in your business email with any additional concerns or suggestions or you could say, Hey, could you, could you please contact me at this email address? Yes. So that we can make that right for you. Cause we're committed make we're committed to doing the right thing. It's just something like that. And it did these arms, the whole situation because I'll tell you one thing. You're not going to win an online battle with an irate customer or irate client.

Clarence Fisher: I mean, they're always going to come back and then other people are as our library, jump in and I'll tell you when you start answering your reviews, the good ones and the bad ones, the few bad ones that happen, other people will start jumping to your aid, your former customers, your existing customers, clients, patients will start jumping to your aid. So what you want to do is number one, breathe when you get a bad review, okay, breathe. Don't panic. Pull out the list of responses that I'm giving you in the show notes. Okay? And use them and I definitely want to hear how it went. I mean, you can use the example that I just gave you, and that works fine, but I want to know how it went. You can shoot me an email or leave me a message at clarencefisher.com/ask.

Clarence Fisher: And if you have any more questions, you can ask there too. Leave me a message and we'll get whatever question you have on the show, but definitely keep this posted. And what you want to do is have someone that is in charge of responding to these reviews, okay? And give them the sheet that, that you're downloading and even one better is having your customer feedback system in place. We talked about that last week. If you miss that go to the episode last week and figure out how to put your customer feedback system in place so that you can catch these things before they even get online. I mean, that's the best, the best way to catch it, but get your customer feedback system in place and then use our negative review response templates to respond to your negative review. Above all, remember to not panic and remember whatever you write, however you address them is number one.

Clarence Fisher: Number one reason is, well, you want to make things right but also you want to show future prospects that not only are you listening, but you make things right. And I guarantee you, you're going to get more business from doing that, alright? So if you liked today's episode or any of our episodes, actually, would you do me a favor? Would you post that, share it on either LinkedIn or Facebook or Instagram, whatever your favorite social media platform is. And tag us, tag me with #localmarketmonopoly or #owntheblock and we will definitely see that. And I would really appreciate that and rate, review us on Apple podcast, Stitcher, or wherever else you listen to us. But above all take what I've taught you. Take action and do whatever you have to do to own the block.

: We appreciate you listening to Local Market Monopoly. Be sure to rate, review, and subscribe to the show and visit ClarenceFisher.com for more resources that will help you dominate your local market and own the block.