Don’t make it worse: Customers who leave negative comments should be thanked, not punished. A customer that cares enough to address their dissatisfaction means they’re giving you a chance to fix the relationship. If you delete the comment there is a likely chance the customer will leave more upset then when they started, which could result in them taking their dissatisfaction to other platforms.

Customer service: One dissatisfied customer may influence ten potential customers. You may think that one unhappy customer may not matter because they may never do business with you again. However, potential customers could see this and shy away from conducting business with you. For small businesses, feedback like this provides a great opportunity to showcase your customer service abilities to not only current customers, but prospective customers as well.

No business is perfect: We’ve all been there – reading reviews of a company with nothing but 100 percent customer satisfaction and wondering who they paid to write all of these glowing reviews. Having negative content gives your company credibility. No business is perfect and even the best companies in the world are not going to have perfect feedback. One negative comment among numerous positive comments lets customers know you’re a real and honest company that isn’t paying people to write reviews for them.

Capitalize on feedback: How many people reading this blog have paid a focus group before to help improve business practices? We can see the hands going up. Think of negative comments as a free evaluation of your company. Take the comments seriously and use them to focus on enhancing your business organization. Chances are there is more than the one customer who shares the same negative feelings.

How does your company handle negative content?