The two types of negative reviews & how they impact shoppers

There are two different types of negative reviews (broadly speaking):

1. Customer complaints
2. Differences of opinion

Whether you're dealing with a complaint/issue or a difference of opinion affects how you respond to the review & how it will affect new shoppers that see the review.

Customer complaints

This group of reviews is anything that could be boiled down to “I have a problem & want you to solve it”, and this is good news! Problems are solvable & often you can work with customers to sort out the issues they were having by:

1. Responding privately
2. Empathizing with their situation & solve their problem
3. Asking them to update their review

Check out this post if you want to learn more about how to ask customers to edit, update or delete their review:

How customer complaints impact shoppers

In an ideal scenario, you're going to be able to work with customers to solve their problems & the review will be updated or deleted. If you're not able to solve the problem with the customer though, it's important to show that you care by:

1. Responding publicly
2. Let them know that you are here to help

New shoppers visiting your store understand that sometimes bad experiences happen & aren't scared off by these reviews, but they do want to know that if this happens to them too you'll be here to help them.

Responding publicly, with empathy & action is important to build trust with customers. Tecovas here does a great job with this otherwise highly rated (4.41) denim shirt that didn't work out for this customer:

Differences of opinion

At the end of the day some people just see the world differently. This type of review can be described as customers having a fundamental difference of opinion on some aspect of your product.

These can be genuine, legitimate differences of opinion (I am tall & this shirt doesn't fit me well, I think it is better for short people) or completely ridiculous differences of opinion... but the point is this is their opinion. You're unlikely to change it.

How differences of opinion impact new shoppers

Believe it or not, these reviews are extremely helpful for new shoppers. Reviews are all about telling more of your product story to make sure customers get the full picture. This helps good fit customers have more confidence to opt-in (increasing conversion rate) and helps bad fit customers opt-out (decreasing returns).

If customers aren't going to like your product, we want to help them learn that before they make the purchase. It's important to make sure these reviews are available to customers. Replying can still be helpful & can further illustrate the differences of opinion to try to make sure new shoppers understand.

Tecovas once again does a wonderful job with this review of Goat Belt:

The customer is upset that their belt aged quickly, Tecovas is letting them know it is literally made with the intention to age quickly.

"The result is a boo and belt that ages very quickly for a vintage and worn look that takes days to establish instead of years."

This is a wonderful review for new shoppers to see, if they want a belt that gets the aged look quickly – they'll be more likely to opt-in & purchase! If they don't want that type of belt, we want them to know that upfront or else they'll be very disappointed.

Reviews are all about telling the full version of the story for your product & negative reviews are part of this story. Treat them correctly!