As a freelancer, you kind of are your business, and so any negative review is going to feel like a personal attack. This is totally normal, so it’s not unreasonable if your emotions temporarily get the better of you.
That said, while lashing out might feel good in the moment, it won’t help you attract prospective clients in the future.
Reframing a “bad” review is an opportunity to improve and demonstrate your commitment to client satisfaction. To help you out, let’s go through some of the things you can do to make sure you’re dealing with negative reviews in the right way.
Find the feedback
It might seem obvious, but you can’t deal with a review you’re not even aware of! How do you make sure you don’t miss anything, though? After all, it’s not called the world-wide web for nothing.
Well, the first thing you can do is make a habit of regularly checking the relevant review sites and social pages. This should ensure nothing escapes your notice.
Alternatively, you could consider using some kind of social listening tool to automate the process and help you find feedback you’re not tagged in.
Assess the situation
It’s important not to react right away. Before you do anything, verify that the review is in fact legitimate (and not someone trolling).
You should then conduct an internal investigation into whatever the complaint is about, making sure to be as thorough as possible so you can determine exactly what happened and whether or not the person is justified in feeling aggrieved.
Respond promptly
This initial response is really just about acknowledging the review and letting the person know that you’re looking into the matter. In that sense, you can think of it as a kind of placeholder.
Still, though, it’s a good idea to apologise and express your sympathy up front, as this shows you care about your clients’ feelings – regardless of why they feel the way they do.
Again, try and refrain from going on the offensive (we know it’s tempting). It tends not to be very constructive and only serves to make you appear as if you don’t care, or are above taking criticism.
Also bear in mind that any response you post online or on social media will be visible to prospective clients, and it may be a deciding factor in whether or not they ultimately choose to enlist your services.
Take the matter offline
After posting your initial response, you should contact the client directly (by email, telephone, or even direct message) as a way of following up. This once again demonstrates your commitment to rectifying the situation.
You should do your best to explain what (if anything) went wrong, based on the results of your internal investigation.
Knowing what to do next
If you are actually at fault, then simply own up to your mistake and hope the person appreciates your honesty. If not, you should still apologise for the fact they aren’t happy, but there’s no real point going into any kind of detail.
It’s also advisable to ask the unhappy client open-ended questions, as the answers to these might provide you with more clarity on what steps you can take to fix the situation and prevent it from happening again in the future.
Rise above it if you have to!
Of course, it’s impossible to please everyone, and you will sometimes have to accept letting a situation remain unresolved (as annoying as this is).
Even when dealing with a difficult or unreasonable client, though, you should conduct yourself with grace and try to find the silver linings (e.g. feedback which can be used to help you improve moving forwards).
People will be people at the end of the day, and sometimes there’s just nothing you can do.
Update your public response
The final thing you should do is revisit your initial response and update it to reflect the fact that you’ve spoken with the client and (hopefully) resolved the matter.
Your final response should confirm that you carried out an investigation and contacted the client directly to follow up.
In addition, it should state whether the outcome was positive or negative, and it wouldn’t hurt to chuck in one last apology for good measure!
Now, if you fancy pushing your luck, you can test the waters and see if the client would be willing to either change their original review or write a separate testimonial speaking to the way in which you reached out to sort their issue.
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