Even when we’re trying our best we can get some bad reviews that can leave us feeling bad or angry, but we shouldn’t stop trying only because someone else gave us their opinion. Bad reviews are the just the way others express their discomfort with the method in which we do our things, and even while sometimes they can be hurtful we can use then to grow and develop ourselves. It doesn’t matter in which website you received a bad review, if you know how to handle them then you can even end up looking better than before.

1. Ask yourself is it worth answering. While there are reviews that are factual and don’t need to be handled, there are others that were meant to hurt you or your business. It isn’t hard to know which ones are trying to make you feel bad as they tend to be very obvious. You must use your judgment to determine if the review should be answered.

2. Calm yourself. We know how bad reviews can impact our mood, so you must take a moment to chill down, take a deep breath and don’t let the review impact you in a negative way. Also try to not let bad reviews define the way you handle things, you want to change for the better, not to change entirely.

3. Recollect any information that could help you with your answer, like when did you made business with your reviewer, how you can offer him help or what can you learn from his review.

4. Answer it. If a customer gave you a bad review due to a mistake you made you must answer it quickly, you could tell the person reviewing you how do you feel about your wrongdoing and that it won’t happen again or that you’re going to fix your mistake.

For example, if your reviewer wrote something like “They delivered me the wrong item”, you could answer him with “We’re sorry about or mistake, we will do everything so it won’t happen again, send us the item so we can deliver you the correct one”. On the other hand, if its just a false accusation then there’s not much you can do about it, just ignore it unless you have verifiable proofs.

Remember to answer it in a professional way, use a short phrase, don’t use words that could be taken as a personal attack as things could get even worse and most important, keep your calm when answering, you don’t want your answers to sound angry by other reviewers as this could influence them to create a “me vs you” scenario. Some reviewers might want to lure you into writing angry answers to make you look bad, so in the case that you answered a review that seemed genuine but turned out to be a “trap” just stop answering it.

Remember to thank any constructive -and not so constructive- criticism you might get, as they can be honest concerns that can help you deliver a better service.