How to Handle a Negative Review Online

Has your firm ever gotten a bad review online? Do you wonder how to fight these negative reviews? Follow these tips and your firm will come out looking poised and professional.

First, remain calm. Do not add fuel to the fire. One bad review is not always “bad”. If your firm receives a majority of positive feedback and one bad review, it’s unlikely that the comment will have very much effect.

If you decide that some reputation management is needed, start small. Claim your firm’s listing in Google Places listing on the problematic website. You may not be able to eliminate the bad review, but you may develop some control over your online business information.

Then look for simple things. Did the reviewer distort the facts? Did they violate the site’s terms of service? These can be easy ways to respond and still appear as if you are taking the high ground. You can also try sending a “”cease and desist”" letter to the site to get the bad review removed.

If none of these actions work, listen carefully to the complaint and respond calmly. Remain honest when drafting your response. Don’t make excuses, just promise to make amends. Your client will feel like they were heard and that you care.

Read the articles below for a crash course in law firm reputation management. Then check out posts on reputation management from our Best Legal Marketing Blog for more info.

More Articles on Reputation Management for Attorneys

• Monitoring Your Reputation Online

Reputation Management for Attorneys

Internet reputation management is quickly becoming one of the most important factors for any type of business. The popularity of the internet, particularly search engines and social media platforms, have increased the amount of easily accessible information on a company. Due to this fact, many more people are performing research online before making a purchasing decision. This is particularly true in the service industry.

This same trend has been seen in the legal profession as a whole. Many potential clients use the internet to find information about law firms, and research their current legal situations. Negative reviews from past customers can hurt a company’s reputation since reviews can spread across the internet very easily.

As internet reputation management has become increasingly important, we have developed helpful tools and tips to keep your firm afloat. This starts with Google Alerts. Google Alerts can help you monitor ‘keywords’ such as your firm’s name or the names of specific attorneys. This allows you to know when new information shows up in search results. When negative listings surface, it is important to respond to the complaint whenever possible. Not all negative reviews are bad. In fact, more credibility is given to companies with various ratings. With that said, it is vitally important to control the amount of negative listings that are shown.

While there are several ways to improve your firm’s reputation online, it is often difficult to remove negative information from the internet. In many instances, the focus of online reputation management should be to push negative listings off the first page of search results. This will decrease the amount of people that see the listing, and ultimately improves your firm’s image. In order to remove listings from the first page of search results, new content may need to be created, and old content may need to be optimized. When completing these two steps, it is important to follow the basic rules of SEO.

Read the articles below for a crash course in law firm reputation management. Then check out posts on reputation management from our Best Legal Marketing Blog for more info.

More Articles on Reputation Management for Attorneys

• Dealing with a Negative Review Online