Turn a Negative Review into a Positive Experience

As the owner of a veterinary practice, you know what it means to work hard. Being praised for your hard work always feels good, but when you receive criticism or negative feedback regarding your staff or services, it tends to sting a bit. You can’t please everyone. Even if you do everything right and bend over backwards to make every single person happy, there’s always someone who decides to be a Negative Nancy.

When a pet owner is displeased with his or her experience at a practice, it isn’t very probable that he or she will come right to you with concerns. Instead, you’re likely to find out about you’re unhappy client’s angst through a review on social media. The client might write a review on your practice’s Facebook page, on your Yelp! page, or even your Google review page. Depending on the client, he or she might just click the 1-star button, or write an entire story about the bad experience.

Seeing a 1-star review for your practice is a hard pill to swallow, but you can make the most of it! The best thing you can do is write a comment back on the negative review to the client. It could be something simple like a sincere apology and an offer to speak with the client further, or if you recall the situation, you can explain what happened more thoroughly.

Writing back to the client’s negative review is very important for others to see. Let’s say a potential client just searched on Google for a veterinarian in your area, and your practice popped up in his search results. The user sees that you have reviews, and he decides to read them. He sees a negative review from a client who expresses that the staff was rude, and the client had to wait a long time. Then, the user sees your response to that review: an apology to the client about the bad experience followed by an offer to speak further so you can address the issue and make it right. The potential client isn’t going to care so much about the negative review, as he is about the fact that you took the time out to respond to the review.

Responding to a negative review can also mean a great deal to the client who left it. If you take the time to address their concerns, the client might feel better about the situation, and that 1-star review might be removed… or it might even be turned into a 5-star review.

If you are ready to reply back to those negative reviews, but aren’t sure where to start, reach out to us! The social media managers at InTouch Practice Communications can explain how you can access the review pages to reply back, as well as offer useful advice on what to write back if a reply is needed! We also have a great product called Reputation Monitoring, which alerts you to any negative reviews that are posted on Facebook, Google, and Yelp!

Make the most out of a client’s bad experience, and let us help you turn a bad situation into a good one! Call 1-800-493-9003 or click here to learn more about the exceptional social media services we offer.