Don’t let negative reviews affect your vacation property rental bookings. Use them as a powerful marketing tool instead.
By March 15, 2013 –You cannot please all the people all the time; even the best of the best receive negative reviews on their properties from time to time. Although it is hard not to get affected by negative reviews, there are many ways to effectively deal with them and turn those negative reviews into positive marketing opportunities.
Generally, those who write reviews are customers who are very happy or very unhappy. Unhappy customers aim at ensuring you are liable for the bad experience they had. They are able to hide behind the anonymity of the Internet, meaning they generally use harsher words than they would if they were face-to-face with you telling their problem. To make matters worse, the impact of a negative review far exceeds the impact of a positive review, making it imperative that you deal with these negative reviews before it affects your vacation rental bookings.
Respond to All Negative Comments
Silence is your worse enemy. If a customer writes a negative review and there is no response from you or your agency, it can be interpreted as either you don’t have responsive customer service, or that you have no response to the ‘truthfulness’ of their negative review. Many businesses shy away from responding to negative comments, unfortunately that is a luxury that established brands with large marketing budgets, like Apple, can afford. Small-to-medium vacation rental agencies and individual property owners who are establishing their brands often cannot afford to let these negative reviews shape their brand image. You may only have one chance to expose yourself to a potential-client: don’t let that one chance come from an unsatisfied customer.
Respond In A Timely Manner
Timing is everything. If you leave too much time between the negative review and your response, you will most likely lose the opportunity to turn the negative review positive for many potential clients who saw the negative review without your response. Read More…
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