← The Law Firm Marketing Minute
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- [00:00]
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Talking to you about handling some negative reviews, it's going to happen, right? No matter how hard you try. All right? No matter what kind of systems you have in place, you can do a lot to minimize the number of negative reviews that you get. But eventually there's just going to be that one client who will never be satisfied. You won't be able to do anything right. It is how you know, it is what it is. Even if that client is completely wrong and they are just making up problems in their head or they're not taking accountability for the own mistakes that they made in the process, whatever it is, they're just not going to be happy with the outcome and they're going to blame you. And when they do, they're going to go to your Facebook page or your Google page or Yelp if you're on there, wherever they go, wherever they got to go, and they're going to leave you a one star. They're going to smear you, they're going to say, you're the worst lawyer ever. You suck, you're terrible, you only wanted their money. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And when you do that, when you get those reviews, there are basically three things, three ways that you can handle it. The first one is to ignore it. And you don't want to do that. I mean, look, you want to respond to every review that you get, all right? Because it shows that you are engaged, that you're listening, and all of that, you know? So, you know, definitely respond to all the reviews that you get. Now don't turn this episode off and go back and respond to every review you've ever gotten. That's going to be weird. Someone left you a review two years ago and now you're responding. That's kind of a weird look, so don't do that. But make a point moving forward to respond to every review that you get, even if it's just a, hey, thank you so much. Really, it was a pleasure working with you. Good luck in the future, whatever it is, you know, just a nice little message acknowledging it. And. And moving forward, another response is to, like, fight back and be like, no, you're stupid and blah, blah, blah, this is all the things that you did wrong and blah, blah, blah. And this is why you got what you got. And while that may be true, and while you may certainly want to do that, all right, don't do that either. You know, look, if you want to write up a snarky response and expose them for everything they did wrong, type it up. In a Google Doc somewhere and then delete it. You know, just get, get it out of your system more or less. Instead, you know, the thing to do, the professional thing to do, the thing that people will see and will resonate with them when they see future reviews of yours, is just acknowledge like, hey, you know, sorry that you are upset by this outcome. Please reach out to us directly. Or you can even, you know, if you've already reached out to them proactively say, look, we've sent you an email on this day, or we called you on this day, we would like to talk things through and you know, make things right. Or, you know, if you didn't do anything wrong, you know, you know, make things right may not be the night, the right phrasing, but you know, get on the same page or come to some sort of amicable understanding, whatever it is, you know, however you want to massage that language so that you've acknowledged it and you are demonstrating that you are taking active steps to basically talk this person down. You know, because even if you didn't do anything wrong, you know, it still shows that you're going the extra mile to make sure that everyone ends up having a good experience, walking away with a good experience. And so how that impacts you in the future is people are doing their research. They're looking, okay, they're seeing how, you know, what's your, you know, Google rating or your Facebook rating, whatever it is, they're going to look through the reviews and here's the thing, they'll look at a couple of the five star reviews, sure. But they're also going to look at all of, they're going to look at all of the negative reviews. They're going to look at all of the 1 and 2 star reviews, and they're going to see if there are any patterns. Like, you know, are people complaining how you never kept in touch with them, how they were never really sure of where their status, their case was, you know, what their case status was, whatever the case may be, they're going to look for that and then they're going to see if you responded and they're going to see how you responded. And if you do that the right way and if there are any issues on your end, demonstrate that you have resolved them internally with new systems, updated processes, all of that. But they're going to see like, okay, they do listen, they do make an effort. This person is clearly insane. And they are still providing customer service, all that. So these are good people. If I do have a bad experience I have that assurance that they are going to make sure that everything ends up okay. And it's just small things like that in the course of people's research that really helps you convert, helps build that social proof and all of that. And so when it comes to negative reviews, you're going to get them, don't ignore them, take the conversation private, for sure. Don't hash all of that out in the review section in the review thread, but at the end of it, you can ask them, hey, look, if we've resolved this, we would love it if you either removed your review or modified it for a higher rating. And you can even explain that in the process. You know, you can tell them like, hey, my initial review was a one star. We work things out. I'm giving them four stars now. Whatever, you know, and so stuff like that, that really makes it so that you're demonstrating that you care. Other people in the future will see that, and it makes you look better.
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