BodyShop Marketing Advises What To Do When You Get a Bad Review on Your Auto Body Website
It’s hardly necessary to explain why reviews are important for your auto body shop, especially considering the importance of web accessibility in ensuring that all potential clients, regardless of ability, can confirm the business's reputation and gauge the expected level of customer service.
All auto body shops, even the most trustworthy and service-oriented ones, will eventually encounter a dissatisfied client who writes a scathing one-star review. Knowing what to do when you get a bad review will help lessen the impact of such feedback and foster a positive, reputable brand image. The following five steps will help auto body shops overcome the hurdle of negative reviews.
1. Track Reviews
Many auto body businesses run on a tight schedule and have little time to follow their online reputation or monitor reviews. Negative reviews may appear on a website or a Google My Business page and remain there without any reaction from the business management. This can create an impression of careless customer service that doesn’t bother to resolve issues clients bring up.
Working with a digital agency like BodyShop Marketing will help auto body shop owners keep tabs on their reviews and ensure that any negative feedback gets a fast, efficient response.
It’s also important to check review authenticity. From time to time, auto body shops may run into fake reviews posted maliciously — for example, by unprincipled competitors or someone else who wants to hurt the business. The auto body shop owner or reputation manager should flag and report the review when suspecting such tactics.
2. Reach Out to the Reviewer
If the reviewer’s contact information is available, an auto body shop representative should reach out to them as soon as possible. This is an opportunity to validate the customer’s experience, address the issue, offer compensation, and see what the business can do to improve its customer service.
The person responsible for communicating with unhappy clients must be professional and positive. Under no circumstances should the responder take criticism personally, get defensive, argue with the customer, or dismiss their concerns.
Often, a customer who leaves a negative review will remove or edit their feedback after a satisfactory response from the business. However, pressuring reviewers to do that would be a bad idea. Any outreach to resolve a problem should be unconditional and presented as part of the auto body shop’s commitment to excellent service.
Check out this video that includes 7 tips for responding to bad reviews:
3. Respond Publicly
In addition to personal outreach, every negative review calls for an open, public response. The answer should address the reviewer’s issue, validate their concerns, and showcase the business’s commitment to resolving the problem.
For example, “We are sorry to hear you were unhappy with the service at our auto body shop. We commit to 100% customer satisfaction and would like to find out how we can improve your experience and do better in the future. Our shop manager has messaged you, and we hope we can resolve this issue promptly.” As much as possible, the response to each customer should be personal and address the specific problem the review brought up.
If there’s no option of contacting the customer, the person responding to the review may write, “Please reach out to our service team through our website or email us.” Even if the original reviewer never sees the response, other people will. A quick, constructive response to negative feedback shows accountability and produces a much better business image than bad reviews that remain unanswered.
4. Work To Generate More Reviews
Ultimately, ratings and reviews are all about numbers. The more good reviews an auto body shop earns, the less weight the occasional negative review will have. That’s why, apart from working hard to deliver the absolute best possible service, body shops should also encourage clients to review the business. Building a solid body of authentic reviews may take time, but the effort pays off.
Sending a follow-up text after a service appointment can help body shops gain more reviews. The text message may include a link to the business’s Google reviews, along with a polite request to leave a rating and feedback: “Thank you for choosing our auto body shop. We hope you’re happy with our service and invite you to review our business on Google.”
5. Grow From Criticism
When auto body shop owners ask about what to do when getting a bad review, the answer should include an honest assessment of the issues the review highlights.
It’s true that some clients may have unreasonable expectations and that no auto body shop can avoid negative feedback altogether. However, dismissing negative feedback would be a mistake. Understanding why reviews are important for your auto body shop, a savvy business owner should consider bad reviews in a neutral, unbiased way and assess whether the customer offers valid criticism.
This is especially true if several reviews bring up a similar issue. For example, if more than one client complains about long service times, the auto body shop owner or manager may look into the service process and see whether it would be possible to accelerate it. With hard work and commitment to improve, negative reviews can become a springboard to better business practices.
Contact BodyShop Marketing for more information on what to do when you get a bad review, and other aspects of digital marketing for auto body shops. Call (855) 667-9648, email hello@bodyshopmarketing.io, or fill out the online form on the BodyShop Marketing website to schedule a consultation.
