How to respond to a bad review

by Jayne | Jun 22, 2022 | Copywriting, Marketing, PR & Comms, Working practice

How to respond to a bad review

You probably already know the value of an online review. Satisfied customers sharing what they love about your organisation, services, and products helps attract new customers and gives them the confidence to buy or try. It’s a great way to grow your organisation. And it also helps with search engine optimisation (SEO) as Google and its ilk love to see real people taking the time to share their experiences. So the more reviews your organisation has the higher up the Google rankings you will go – without spending more on marketing. It’s a win, win. But what do you do if you get a bad review?

The first thing to say is if your organisation is doing well and you have happy customers, you’re meeting the targets you set yourself then you probably won’t get many or any bad reviews. But you may get a rogue one. And how you respond to that is going to make all the difference to your reputation – not the review itself.

Let’s imagine you run a social enterprise café. You employ young people, who have no qualifications and perhaps have struggled so far in life, to give them skills and experience in the hospitality industry while they also complete training courses at college. Your café is at the heart of your community and on the whole, your customers are happy. But one day you get a review that says:

“Rude customer service, long wait, and inedible food. I would never go here again and certainly would not recommend it. I understand that they are trying to do good things but I think the staff are not ready to be in the real world serving and making food. Great idea but don’t go there if you actually want an enjoyable lunch”.

Your heart sinks. Your mind races. Who was it? Have there been any complaints? What happened? Have the staff seen this? Are they upset? Then your fight or flight kicks in. At this point, you need to stop and take a deep breath. Don’t do anything at all yet. Responding to a bad review quickly and while you are in this mindset will not help. Instead, make yourself a drink or do a small task to distract yourself.

Then come back to the review. But start inside the café. Ask staff if they are aware of any recent complaints? At the same time, reassure staff – let them know you are happy and this is just one person who was probably having a bad day. Remind them of good reviews. Set the tone for the response – try not to take it personally; although it feels like an attack on you, your people, and your business. Reassure them that you will deal with this complaint, they don’t need to do anything.

Nobody knows of any unhappy customers so you set to work on a response. You could respond to each point, explaining why you think they are wrong and that if they had a problem they should have spoken up at the time. But you’ll probably come across as defensive and perhaps aggressive. And who would want to eat in a café with that kind of atmosphere?

Instead, here are three key things to include in your response:

Apology
Even if you don’t feel like it or don’t feel it is needed, this is not about you it’s about how the complainant feels so apologise. You don’t have to admit fault. You can say something like “I am sorry that your experience fell short of your expectations.”
Email
As quickly as you can, take this complaint out of view of everyone else. It might be a good idea to have an email address that you use just for these sorts of occasions. You can say something along the lines of: “I would value hearing more about your experience so I can investigate. Feedback always helps us improve. Perhaps you could email me at .”
Reassurance
This is your chance to defend, humble brag, and big up your team. Use this as an opportunity to talk about why many of your customers return and the good experiences they have. You might like to show your team you are proud of them, perhaps try: “I am really proud of the team we have here at Our Café. They have all overcome adversity to be here and are working hard to build better futures for themselves. Like many of us, they are still learning but I know each of them would be upset to know they had missed the mark. Each week we serve more than 200 customers who receive yummy drinks, snacks and meals, within the time frame performance mark which we set ourselves, served with great customer service. Many of our customers who return on a weekly basis tell us they do because they love the atmosphere we provide too.”

This kind of response shows other readers that reviews are listened to and acted on. That customer service matters to you. That customers matter to you.

Turning a negative into a positive

And if the complainant does take the time to email you, make sure you respond and continue in a timely, courteous manner. Try to get to the bottom of their complaint. If you need to take action, take it and let them know. Thank them for their feedback. And if you get to a good footing, you could even invite them back to try and change their mind. It is possible to turn a negative review into a positive for your organisation.

How often do you check your online reviews? Has this article helped you feel prepared for dealing with reviews in the future?

If you want help with setting up your online reviews, any aspect of your organisation’s online presence or reputation, We Are Comma can help. Email . You can also find out more about the services we offer by visiting the What We Offer page on the website.

Pic courtesy of Adobe Stock

Pic showing a woman using a mobile phone with satisfaction symbols and check boxes superimposed

How to create a successful marketing campaign: Christmas jumper day

by Jayne | Dec 9, 2021 | Copywriting, Creative, Marketing, PR & Comms

How to create a successful marketing campaign: Christmas jumper day

This is the first in our irregular series looking at successful marketing campaigns and how you can create your own winning promotion.

2021 is the 10th anniversary of Save the Children’s annual fundraising Christmas jumper day. Last year the campaign raised £3m for the charity – despite all the challenges of last Christmas. So why is this campaign so successful? And most importantly, how can you recreate its achievements?

There are five key reasons Christmas jumper day is so popular.

First, it’s simple. It’s an easy-to-understand concept. Wear a Christmas jumper then donate some money for doing so. Great! Finding a similarly simple concept to promote your charity or organisation might not be so easy but it is possible. There are a few options – either you can choose a time of year that you want to focus your efforts on and pick something familiar as a ‘hook’ to hang your campaign on; Easter bonnet day for example. Or you pick something that it iconic to your brand and focus on that.

Secondly, use an item they have or are familiar with. Everyone knows what a Christmas jumper is. Many people own them. Picking a day when everyone should wear them makes it powerful. This leads into point three.

Three, make your campaign accessible. Everyone can wear a Christmas Jumper. This is one of the reasons it is so popular in schools, places of work – everywhere. Anyone and everyone can join in – if they’re willing to wear a questionable jumper. And in fact, since Christmas jumper day launched the options for more tasteful Christmas jumpers have increased. Incidentally this has been reflected in the marketing. It started as a very tongue in cheek, dodgy jumper day. But its simplicity and popularity mean it has grown to be more middle-of-the-road. Asking people to wear ballgowns, for example, will never become so popular because they are not so easy to get hold off, a good percentage of the population would rather not wear them and many people couldn’t do their job in them.

Four, make it regular. This is the 10th annual Christmas jumper day. Schools, PTAs, hospitals, community groups, local authorities – everyone knows to expect it in early December. This means they can make it part of their plan for the year.

Five, make people feel good. This is the most important part to any successful campaign. People have to feel good for taking part. Save the Children’s Christmas jumper day makes people feel good for donating to a worthy cause. And they can build excitement about the coming celebrations for Christmas. It’s a win-win. How can your organisation leverage this feel good factor? Are you a charity that people can feel good raising money for? Are you an organisation which people can volunteer for and feel good doing so? Are you a small business that can make people feel good for supporting? Find your feel good factor and use it.

What lesson from Christmas jumper day will you be taking into your campaigns in 2022?

Remember We Are Comma can help design, develop and deliver your campaigns and create success for your organisation. Email to find out how we could help you.

Photos from Adobe Stock

We are two!

by Jayne | Sep 22, 2021 | Marketing, PR & Comms

We are two!

Today We Are Comma is celebrating our second birthday! Another year has whizzed by so as is our custom, we are taking some time to reflect on the year.

Our biggest take away from this year is the importance of supporting one another. Last year we wrote about the importance of choosing clients carefully. This year we have been so grateful that we did and we want to give an especially big thank you to all our clients.

We have had a number of new clients join us this year including The Gandhi Foundation, Career Innovation Companyand the Disabled Living Foundation among others. We have loved getting to know these organisations and supporting them with new ideas, driving their marketing forward and supporting them.

We have also continued to work with many of our long-standing clients including Blackfen Community Library, Shaw Trust, Inspace Media, 1st Industrial and Commercial Services and Valicity to name a few. We have valued their continued support of We Are Comma and their repeat business over these difficult, COVID-19 pandemic times.

Support goes both ways so as well as the services we always provide for our clients, we try to go above and beyond to add extra value and when we can provide favours. We believe in what our clients are trying to achieve and usually have to rein ourselves in knowing there are only so many hours in a day – so we love it when we get a chance to go overboard for a client and do that bit extra. These are just some of the ways we demonstrate the importance of supporting one another.

So, what does the next year have in store for We Are Comma? We’ve got some exciting potential projects coming up with even more new clients – watch this space. We’ll continue to give our clients the excellent creative service they expect from us. In our last blog post we spoke about how the team has grown over the last year – so maybe we’ll grow the team again this year. We’ll definitely be sharing more on our social media channels so keep an eye out to see what we’re up to on our LinkedIn and Instagram accounts.

Who would you like to give a shout out for their support this year?

Pic showing two people discussing some work on a laptop

Photos from Adobe Stock

Sorry for the radio silence!

by Jayne | Sep 15, 2021 | PR & Comms, Working practice

Sorry for the radio silence!

What a year! I suppose I better start by explaining why we have been so quiet over the last almost a year. Well for a start we have been growing the team; in more ways than one. I have been off on maternity leave. Last October, my second son was born. It’s been an exciting, challenging and very special time. Maternity leave when you’re running your own business is quite different to when you are an employee.

When I had my elder son, someone covered my role while I was away on maternity leave. I left them an instruction manual of my job and ensured they understood what needed to be done, when. They had contact details for my boss so any problems they could reach them. I’d emailed HR and they knew my plans about maternity leave. They would arrange my pay. On my last day of work (two days before my son was due), I said my farewells for a year and off I went. My role was covered. My boss was happy. I was about to meet my baby.

This time it was a very different matter. [Let’s not talk about being pregnant, giving birth and after care in a global pandemic!] For a start the practicalities of maternity leave are very different – arranging maternity pay is much more confusing. No simple email to HR to say when you’re off. But once I had got over that. I needed to arrange cover for my work. I had a range of trusted colleagues, whom I had worked with over the years to ask to cover writing, comms and PR for our clients as needed. This worked well and ensured continuity. Al could oversee work and do the client liaison side of things.

The good thing about working for yourself is often flexibility and during maternity leave this proved to be very true. If I was needed, I was just a phone call away. And those phone calls could happen anytime not just Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm. For me this was a huge plus as I could arrange calls for when my sons were in bed or at times my husband would be around to take care of his kids.

This flexibility has also been so useful for me in coming back to work. I am now back working with We Are Comma one day a week to smooth the transition for my family. As we get used to things, I will be back working more hours but this flexibility is so valuable with young children. Unlike a job as an employee, I am not forced in fixed hours each week as soon as I return. I can take things slow but if they are going well, I can ramp my hours up quickly. Likewise, when the inevitable – with two young kids – sick days happen I can be flexible in my hours so I can care for them.

I mentioned our team has grown in more ways than one. As well as trusted colleagues joining us on the comms, PR and writing side of things, we have also had Dan join our team to strengthen and add to our web offering. Mark has also joined us a graphic designer to expand our capacities in this area. Read more about Dan, Mark and the rest of the team here.

So, what have I missed? What’s been your biggest news story of the last year?

Pic showing family on the beach during the summertime

Photos by Jayne Runacres

Marketing in the new normal: all change

by Jayne | Oct 8, 2020 | Marketing, PR & Comms, Working practice

Marketing in the new normal: all change

In the second of our two articles on marketing in the ‘new normal’ – you can read the first here – we share how marketing is changing and what your organisation needs to do to adapt.

In many ways covid-19 has accelerated many of the changes the world was already facing – the growth of digital communications, more flexible working from home and issues around climate change. All of these impact on marketing and how you reach your customers, visitors, partners and donors. Many of the traditional marketing channels that organisations have relied on, for in some cases hundreds of years, will die out as a result of this global pandemic.

Paper cuts

Flyers are sure to be a casualty of our times. Not only is it more environmentally friendly to stop using flyers, there are also hygiene reasons to change this marketing practise. Reducing the number of things people need to touch when out and about – and even the amount of ‘things’ being brought into people’s homes – is a no brainer with a global pandemic. Added to that fewer people are going to places where they might have ordinarily picked up a flyer. Deciding to stop using flyers could also be a great good news story to share about your organisation.

Face mask to face mask marketing

Many businesses rely on face to face marketing at events, conferences and exhibitions throughout the year. Of course, the global pandemic has put an end to most of these for now but they will be back. In the meantime, why not investigate ‘covid secure’ ways of meeting your customers face to face? If you have a shop or hospitality venue you will no doubt have implemented ways to keep welcoming customers in a safe way. If your organisation does not have regular outlets for meeting customers, look at those who do and see what you could learn. Have a look for face to face marketing opportunities which take place outside and allow for lots of social distancing. Many outdoor autumn events like pumpkin picking will still be going ahead – could your business get involved in some way?

Online and on point

As our post at the beginning of lockdown said “This is a great time to invest in your online communities.” And as we said in part one of this series. Now is not the time to abandon the community and following you have built. These channels are set to keep growing and becoming more important. Make sure you don’t miss out.

Think carefully about how you will replace the marketing channels you can’t currently use, either temporarily or for the long term. And make sure you’re thinking about what channels you can make use of instead.

To make an informed decision you need some good data. As with any marketing decision, you need to know your ‘customer profile’. Really get to know your customers:

who are they?
why are they your customer?
how long have they been your customer?
what other brands/ organisations do they like/ support?

Dig right into this data to inform your marketing choices. If you need support with this, our team can help. We can even help you devise your new marketing strategy for 2020 and beyond.

What is your favourite marketing channel? What does your organisation find most successful?

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko from Pexels

Marketing in the new normal: Staying on track

by Jayne | Oct 1, 2020 | Marketing, PR & Comms, Working practice

Marketing in the new normal: Staying on track.

Surely one of the most annoying phrases to come out of the global pandemic has been the “new normal” and yet it is probably the best way to describe the situation. There are so many changes which would have been almost unimaginable in January. We’re all adjusting – who hasn’t forgotten their face mask and hand sanitiser at some point? Businesses, charities and other organisations are no different. How do you continue your marketing in such “unprecedented” (another fantastic coronavirus phrase) times? In the first of two articles, we share how to keep your organisation’s marketing on track at this time.

Don’t abandon your online community

If you read our post towards the beginning of lockdown on how to continue marketing during coronavirus pandemicyou will have seen that staying online was of vital importance. As more places begin to open up and life gets back to the familiar patterns of busy-ness it can be tempting to spend less time cultivating your online community but as with growing anything, you only get out what you put in. The less content you produce, the fewer people will see it and engage with it then the various social media channel algorithms will mean what you do produce is shown to even fewer people which means less interaction and so this vicious cycle continues. If you know that you won’t have time to dedicate to your online presence, make sure you delegate it to someone else in your organisation or outside of it, for example we devise, create and manage social media for a number of clients. We can also keep your website up to date with news as well as the behind the scenes updates too.

Don’t forget those who are still shielding

Keeping your online community alive is also vital for those customers who are still shielding or anxious about going out. Although the government says shielding has finished this is not always the case – especially for those on immune suppressants, receiving cancer treatment or with long term health conditions. As autumn turns to winter, we can expect more people to go back to shielding. Don’t forget these customers – they still want to buy, give and engage with the organisations and brands they love.

Let visitors know what to expect

Look at reopening your site(s) as an opportunity to talk about the new things that are happening, mention the innovations your organisation is leading, along with all the things your customers already love about what you do. Social media and your website are great places to let your stakeholders know what they can expect when they visit. You will already have new procedures in place for social distancing and staying ‘covid-19 secure’; make sure your visitors know this. For example, will visitors be able to use toilets? Is there a one-way system in place? What about track and trace? The more information you can give people the more confident they will feel about visiting. A frequently asked questions section on your website is a great place for all this information. Providing an email address or telephone number for any questions is also a good idea – providing they will be answered in a timely manner.

Expect the unexpected

These are uncertain times and we have to expect a fluctuation in restrictions. Given the government’s recent announcements about additional restrictions lasting at least the next six months, it’s a good idea to be prepared for further localised lockdowns and changes to daily life. Spend time planning how your business will deal with changes. Then when required, make sure you let your customers know what you are doing and what to expect. For example, if you are a small café now facing having to take orders at tables instead of counter service let your customers know how you will be doing this: remind them that tables will still socially distanced and that they need to wear a face mask upon entry until seated. Then once seated a colleague, wearing a face mask, will come to them to take their details for track and trace plus their order which will be delivered to them once ready etc. Or if you have an app for customers to use explain where to download it from and how to use it. ‘Explainer’ videos can be great for this. If you need support with creating video or any other content, we can help.

How has your marketing changed in the last six months? What plans have you got for your marketing in the next six months?

Photo by ThisIsEngineering from Pexels