Are you scared of negative comments?

One of the characteristic features of a blog is that readers can leave comments that remain on the site for future readers to see. In fact, today’s social internet is full of opportunities for perfect strangers to rate your content and post comments. Many people (and businesses) are reluctant to post their content because they’re worried about negative comments.

This is an area where the younger generation and the older generation have very different perceptions. Older people think this constant ability to comment is a bad thing. Younger people think it’s a good thing. Which is it? The answer depends on how you handle the situation.

Consider a restaurant that receives a negative comment on Yelp about their spaghetti. “The spaghetti sucks.” If the restaurant has verified their account on Yelp (see Chapter 48 for more details), they have the ability to respond to each comment. So what should they do? Get mad? Maybe, but there’s a better way. Consider the following response:

“Thank you for telling us what nobody else would. We’ve changed the recipe. Among other things, we’re now using ground turkey instead of beef and we’re also using organic whole wheat pasta. Please come back and try it again.”

Personally, I’d be curious to try the spaghetti. You may feel differently, but the point stands. There are productive and unproductive ways to reply to negative comments. The first rule: always reply. Explain how you’re fixing the problem. Make sure your response is right beside the comment so that anyone who reads the comment will also read your response.

I remember when I got my first negative comment on my “Beyond the Rate” podcast series. That was an educational series about the mortgage business that I recorded in 2006. Anyway, the comment was on the fourth episode. Actually, it was quite vicious. The guy really called me out. He totally disagreed with my thesis and gave a litany of reasons why he was right and I was wrong.

I was mad. Oh boy; was I mad. At first, I started thinking of all the things I wanted to say to that guy: stormrider718, whoever he was. I wanted to tear him down! I strategized all the different things I could do to make his life difficult. But I waited. Thank God. I slept on it.

When I woke up the next morning, I realized he was basically right. I hadn’t supported my argument. I just spewed out my opinion without any supporting evidence (even though I had plenty). Bottom line: my podcast was practically begging people to post counterarguments.

If you listen to my whole podcast series (it’s actually still available online), you will notice that, starting in the fifth episode, my statements include a lot more supporting evidence. In other words, those later episodes are better than the first four. That guy – stormrider718, the guy I was so angry with at first – ended up helping me improve my podcasts.

Negative comments are a blessing in disguise, but you need a lot of self-discipline to see that. You need to hold yourself back at first. Force yourself to wait 24 hours before reacting. It’s difficult, I know. But it’s so important. If you restrict your initial reaction, you’ll soon see the opportunity.

Ironically, negative comments are the very best thing you can hope for. They tell you how to improve your business. The faster you find those negative comments, the faster you can improve your business. The truth is that you should almost encourage negative comments!

If people absolutely hate you, they’re usually pretty quick to say so. But if they have three good things to say and one bad thing to say, they’ll usually say the three good things and skip over the bad. How do you uncover that one bad thing? It’s way more important than the good things.

“If you had to improve three things about my product or service, what would they be?” Get creative.

What about that one guy (or gal) who’s on a mission to destroy your business? What do you do about him or her? Well, you can’t do much. But it’s okay. If you have 15 four and five-star reviews and then one absolutely awful review, it sticks out like a sore thumb. Trust that the average person will recognize that as quickly as you do.

Once again, I recommend responding to the comment as best you can but you will probably never make that person happy, and that’s okay. The important thing to remember is that your response is only 5% intended for the person who wrote it and 95% intended for all the other people who will read the original comment followed by your response thereafter.

I recently stayed at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach, Florida. Upon checkout, I got my receipt in an envelope along with a business card suggesting I post comments on TripAdvisor. Brilliant. Don’t hide in a cave, fearing negative comments. Instead, get as many comments as you can and trust that the average will accurately reflect the quality of service you provide.

Author Bio: Patrick is the author of \”Marketing Shortcuts for the Self-Employed\” (2011, Wiley) and a regular speaker for Bloomberg TV. Watch his video about negative comments on YouTube.

Category: Business
Keywords: patrick,schwerdtfeger,negative,comments