Everyone is going to have a bad review crop up about them once in a while. There is little you can do about this. You can’t impress or please everyone all of the time. What you can do is provide a way for your customers to vent their frustration in a non-public way.

Things like surveys, polls, direct comment forms, and toll-free voicemail lines are great ways for your customers to let you know how you’re doing without taking their grievances elsewhere. If you show that you’re open to receive criticism, your customers are less likely to feel the need to let others know about the problems they had.

Granted, these methods won’t stop all public negative comments. Some people, especially those who think they’ve had a really bad experience, will take their negativity and post about it publicly. There is little you can do about this.

Should We Try to Reach Out to Negative Reviewers – or Leave Them Alone?

This is a definite YES! The best way to get a former customer to stop spreading their negative views is to try to fix whatever went wrong.
Not only does this show that you care about their situation and experience, but it allows you to fix whatever went wrong so it doesn’t happen again.

Since their first impression wasn’t the greatest, apparently, you need to ensure that the impression you leave them with is a positive one. It might not bring them back as a customer, but it might keep them from spreading more negativity about your business online. It might even cause them to leave a follow up review telling about how you came to their aid, and fixed their problem.

How can you do this?
If you find a review left in a forum or on a blog post, reach out to the author via comments or directly in the thread. Private message them if you can to see how you can make the situation better. Ask how you can improve, this will let them know that their experience wasn’t ignored.

Also ask them what the response to their solution meant to them. This will let you know if you’ve made enough of a difference to make them happy. If all they want to do is scream and type in caps lock, chances are nothing you do will make a difference.

Advice: Try to keep it Offline and Private as much as you can!