How to Handle Negative Reviews Online - SearchRespect.com New Online Reputation Management service

Nov. 26, 2011 - PRLog -- For those of you dealing with negative reviews, ratings, and forum posts appearing on search engine results, you know how frustrating it can be. Emotions quickly go from fear to anger, compelling you to act in your defense. If you surf around for advice online, they'll tell you to respond to negative criticism to protect your reputation. But that's not always the right advice.

Search Respect (http://SearchRespect.com) an Online Reputation Management start-up, in 2011 began offering services to businesses interested in protecting and building their brand online. "Some companies that we've worked with at Search Respect reported that responses to their complaints online have made their situation even worse", according to CEO Henry Jawhary.

It’s not only businesses that should be paying attention to their online reputation; individuals have to know what’s being said about them as well. In a survey recently conducted by Microsoft, over 70% of hiring managers reported that they rejected a candidate based on what they found in his or her search results. More about this here: http://searchrespect.com/2011/11/growing-number-of-job-ca.... Like businesses, individuals should first assess the situation before moving to counter the negative information.

Crafting the right response requires a careful assessment of how serious the complaints are, how often they've occurred, whether they continue to occur, and what level of publicity they're getting. If a major company has significant ongoing issues, an online effort to respond to customer complaints and comments should contain the situation. However, if an angry contractor or customer complains online about a bad experience with your small business, responding directly is rarely correct.

When negative reviews, ratings, or feedback are left about your business on forums or review sites, the best advice, in most cases, is do not respond- especially not via the same medium. Instead, work behind the scenes to bury the influence other websites have over your brand, and neutralize the negative information.

Here are a few reasons against responding to negative information directly where it's posted:
•   the offending site earns extra points on the search engines for update frequency and freshness.
•   your response is more content for them that is indexed by the search engines.
•   your response online is recently dated suggesting that your company issues are current.
•   the offending site now has more credit than they deserve. You're the one who made them important by paying attention.
•   It leaves you vulnerable to more negative attack. Against some individuals, no amount of appeasement will work.

While silence is being advocated above, you certainly should take action behind the scenes to defend your brand. Refer to this article for reputation building steps you should take: http://searchrespect.com/2011/11/bury-negative-search-res.... If there are one or two negative reviews, and it's feasible and economical to resolve, then reaching out to the reviewers to remedy their issues and have them remove the comment may be worthwhile. Email, call, or private message the complaining parties, but never use the same mode of communication as the complaint (e.g. blog post, forum post, comment, response). If possible, call the offending party and avoid writing lengthy emails that can be posted online. Also remember, if you can't remove all the negative reviews, then removing one or more won't make a difference. It's an all or none proposition.

Another option, depending on the situation, would be to contact the forum owners to request the removal of negative information in exchange for your 1) commitment to handle the existing user grievances, and 2) providing some financial incentive to the site owners. If you still need to bring in some heavy reputation management firepower, contact Search Respect.

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Search Respect provides Online Reputation Management services to help you defend and build your online reputation. If you've been the target of negative publicity online, we can defend your brand and launch a counter offensive to strengthen your position.