A business can easily gain a bad reputation online through bad reviews. Every business needs to have an online reputation repair strategy to counter any negative feedback. Most business owners don’t have the expertise to repair their brand themselves and will need to hire expert help from a professional image reputation repair company.

As well as hiring outside help, there are some strategies that can be used to repair a bad reputation and start attracting new clients.

Communicate

Sometimes people just want you to listen to their concerns. Replying to negative reviews can seem daunting, but you need to do it if you want to show your audience that you take feedback seriously and will resolve any issues.

You can do things like remove yelp reviews if they are false and clearly malicious, but otherwise, you should respond, and show that you take any feedback seriously and appreciate people reaching out.

Apologize

Apologizing to your customers is hard to do, but it’s one of the most important parts of recovering your reputation. When you are crafting an apology, remember to stay away from pointing blame at anyone, and try to be as sincere as you can. Tell your customers that you want to make sure you do better in the future and that you are doing everything you can to avoid making the same mistakes again.

Fix the Problem

You need to fix any problems as soon as you can. Work out what the root of the problem is and get a long-term solution in place to fix it. Share this solution with your customers so you show them that you are serious about solving the problems that complaints have brought to your attention. Recovering your reputation can be as easy as making a small, but significant, change.

Change the Conversation

Attracting new customers and giving them your new and improved level of service or product is a great way to gain some more positive reviews and start repairing a bad reputation. As you get more good reviews, the bad ones become less noticeable. Being able to change your customer’s opinions is a big task, but you can manage it.

Create a Reputation Recovery Plan

You need to develop a strategy to recover your reputation, as well as responding to reviews and fixing any issues. You can come up with a plan on your own, or you could hire a business reputation management service to get some expert help. This service can respond to reviews and repair your reputation.

Publish Positive Content

Use your business’s blog to publish some positive content that highlights your company’s efforts towards providing the best possible service to your customers. You can also your blog to address any issues that are brought up in negative reviews. Optimize the content so it can be picked up in search engine results. This is a smart way to repair your negative reputation as it can help to counteract any negative reviews that also come up in search results.