Mike Andes explains how landscaping businesses should handle negative reviews. Send automated review requests after every job, respond to one-star ratings within hours by calling the customer and posting a professional reply, and treat bad reviews as chances to show other customers you fix problems.
Hey everyone, it's Mike Andes@landscapebusinesscourse.com and today while I'm talking, I'm going to show you an edging job. But today I want to talk about what it's like to get a one star review. Now if you've been in this business long enough, literally a few months, you've probably at some point got a one star review on Google or Facebook or Yelp or HomeAdvisor or Angie's List or some other platform where customers are allowed to review you. Now reviews are very, very important for SEO, search engine optimization as well as for customers to verify that you're a good person to with a good business, a brand that they want to do business with. So it's a very positive thing. You need reviews. So to shy away or push reviews like, oh, I'm not going to ask people for reviews or I'm going to try to hide them or I'm going to like, you know, not claim my page on Google. My business, I just don't want to deal with all this negativity. That's the wrong thought process. Here's what you want to think about. Number one, get as many reviews as possible. It's very good for the search algorithm and for Google to use their products. Google reviews, also Facebook reviews instead of and all these other platforms that I mentioned, however, you're going to at some point get a one star review. How do you deal with it? Well, first, before we even talk about one star reviews, how do you get reviews? You need to have an automated process that asks for an online review after you do service for any customer and they're gonna leave their honest feedback. And traditionally you're going to do this right after you finish a job. You wanna ask them for review. And I don't mean in person like walking up the door and say, hey, can you leave us a review? It's now very difficult cause they gotta go to their computer, remember your name, type it in, find you on Google, then leave. Send them a direct link after every single time you do a job. Just make it automated. Every single customer, ideally they're happy with you and they're going to leave you a five star review. Now what happens when they leave a one star review? This is the thing about one star reviews that everyone fails to remember. Yes, they're negative. Yes, it feels like someone literally karate chopped you into the stomach and you feel sick about it. And you're so mad because a lot of times you've tried your very best, you've bent over backwards, trying your very best to do the best work for a client and then they leaving you a one star review. Usually they're the ones that you want to went the extra mile. You went and gave them extra things, you went there on the weekends, you went way over budget hours and lost a bunch of money on the job, and yet they're the ones who give you the one star review. So it's not easy to get a one star review. By no means. I know it feels horrible. But keep this in mind. When you looked at the last product reviews or service provider reviews, what were the first reviews that you watched or looked at? I guarantee you, if there was 500 five star reviews and then three or four one star reviews, you read the three or four one star reviews. So keep that in mind because a lot oftimes a one star review is a really good thing because it's gonna be the thing that customers look at first. And how you respond and deal with that one star review is extremely important. What customers are looking for, are you professional or did you come lashing back at the customer and call them names and accuse them of things and call them like they're a horrible person? Or did you just professionally address the issue, talk about what you tried to do to resolve it? Did you refund them the money was what you did to go the extra mile? I showed up on the weekend, we tried everything we possibly can. Can you be professional when you're letting that customer go? And so, you know, saying hey, we're sorry we disappointed you, saying hey, we refunded you, saying we went the extra mile, we came back to your property multiple times and trying to fix it and that we're sorry we couldn't accommodate you and we hope you find a service provider that will serve your needs. Those are the things that a potential customer is going to look for when they see that one star review. So, so look at a one star review not as a positive thing, but as an opportunity to be able to get future customers. Because those are the reviews they're going to read. How you respond to them is extremely important when it comes to responding to them. On that same topic, we gotta start thinking about how do you respond, but also when do you respond. This is the most important part of a one star review. Respond quickly, take time out of the equation and make sure you're getting back to these customers as soon as possible. You probably have their phone number, their email, as soon as you get a one star review. Don't let them ruminate on it, don't let them think about it. Don't let them sleep on it. You want to call them right away and express your either a Apologize b Try to get back to them as soon as possible, respond back to them on the platform that they left a review on. But more importantly, if you diffuse it within a few minutes of getting a review and you call them, there's a really good chance they're going to be much more likely to be able to work with you, figure out a compromise, figure out you coming back to the property and fixing whatever issues they have. That speed is very important. The longer that they think about it, the longer they dwell on it that review gets. So hope that helps. I'm Mike Andes, landscapebusinesscourse.com We'll see in the next one.
Hey, what's Mike here? If you're part of the 10% of people who actually got to the end of the video, congratulations. And also you should definitely make sure you follow me on TikTok and Instagram. Always posting there every single day. And we actually show the prices of jobs that we do in short form videos. Check it out.
