While you might not be able to satisfy each and every employee, however, it is important that you listen to them and respond to it in an appropriate way. While responding to a positive review is not so difficult, responding to a negative review takes some additional cautious efforts.

Many companies tend to ignore negative reviews by not responding to them, but research shows that  62 percent of Glassdoor users have a better perception of the company that responds to negative reviews. In this blog, we will discuss how to respond to negative reviews about your company.

Respond In Time

Whether it is an ex-employee or a present employee, who has made a negative remark about the organization on any social network or online platform, ensure you respond in time. This shows that you really care about the employee’s feelings. Plus, responding in time can prevent the negative review from spreading further.

Maintain Your Cool

Stay calm and respond in the right tone. Remember, maintaining a professional tone is extremely important at all points of time. Not everyone can get the tone right, so train a few people in your social or HR team to respond to each query with a positive professional tone.

A Little Thank You Can Go A Long Way

Whether you receive a positive or a negative review, don’t forget to add a line of acknowledgment for the effort and time the employee has taken out to write the review. Writing a thank you note actually shows that you pay attention to the employee’s thoughts and you are genuinely concerned about bringing a change in the workplace.

Before addressing the issue and highlighting the company’s future plans that may mitigate the issue, do write a quick thank you note.

Check Internally On The Issue Before Responding

Don’t jump on to respond to a negative review as soon as it lands in your inbox. Instead, sleep on it, give some time to yourself and then seek feedback internally among your team before you respond to it publicly. If possible have an approval mechanism in place to review the responses for negative reviews.

Don’t Hesitate To Address The Pain Points

If the employee has mentioned anything specially, take the time to look into it and then draft your response carefully. Ensure to address each of the points mentioned in the review. If you were not aware of the issue before, then thank the employee for bringing it to your notice.  Often there are cases when employees are unhappy with their managers.

To find out if this is the case and address it before it becomes a bigger problem. Finally, after you have checked internally, respond to the review and write on how you plan to change that experience into a positive one.

How Do You Respond To Negative Reviews If You Are A Small Business?

Small businesses tend to neglect the importance of their business reviews on professional sites like Glassdoor. In fact, according to the 2018 Job Seeker Nation Survey, 22 percent of prospective job-seekers reject a company based on the bad reviews they read on such sites.

Hence, it is important to incorporate reading and responding to online reviews as a part of your overall brand strategy. Of course, how quickly and how well you respond matters a lot. Rachel Bitte, chief people officer at Jobvite, recommends having a grievance platform for employees internally where they can raise their concerns anonymously.

Such a proactive approach would stem the need for employees to reach out to online platforms to raise their grievances. Kent Lewis, president and founder of digital marketing firm Anvil Media, recommends encouraging employees to leave their reviews on such sites.

When you have too many positive reviews it will help to negate the negative reviews that you may receive. However, employees shouldn’t be given incentives to give their reviews. It should happen organically over a period of time.

Your response to negative reviews about your company speaks volumes about your organizational value and work ethics and plays a critical role in your employer branding. Potential candidates spend a lot of time reading reviews about the company they want to join and seeing an employer reading and responding to reviews shows that they care about their employees.