How to Respond to Negative Reviews
It’s almost guaranteed that at some point a borrower will write a negative review about you. Many factors can cause borrowers to have a negative feeling about their deal: Rates can change, underwriting guidelines can change, and issues with appraisals or title companies can disrupt their loan process. In these situations, your borrower might decide to leave a negative review. It’s okay to feel upset and angry, but while these are natural reactions, they won’t help your brand, your financial institution’s reputation or your social media presence.
What should you say?
Respond with class. Most marketing and brand experts agree that responding to the negative review online in an appropriate way can help minimize damage to future business, and possibly even get the reviewer to give you or your lending institution another chance. By replying promptly and posting your response publicly underneath the original review, you can also help minimize the possibility of other potential borrowers being swayed by the reviewer’s experience. Future borrowers will see that you care about your clients and actively work to improve your business.
Remember: potential borrowers are reading your comments as well as the negative review, and your response will help borrowers decide whether to choose you or move on to another lender. These exchanges have the potential to become heated, especially if you feel the review was undeserved, but you must remain sincere and not defensive in your response.
Sometimes simply apologizing and thanking the customer for taking the time to share their issues can go a long way. For example:
“I’m sorry that you feel you had a less than 5-star experience with our bank. Please contact me at lendername@bank.com. We would love to talk more about your experience.
We value your business and regret that you were disappointed. We’d like to discuss your experience in detail to see how we can improve our process. Please contact us at lendername@bank.com.”
Responding to all reviews, positive and negative, is also a great way to mask the poor review. We recommend not using the same response for each review. Make it personal, even if you’re unsure of the actual person leaving the review. Use the information in their review to form a short, pleasant response to the borrower.
What shouldn’t you say?
Don’t be defensive and list every reason the borrower didn’t close on time. Don’t give out personal or private borrower information, like FICO scores. Potential borrowers don’t care why that person didn’t close on time, they just want to be assured that they will.
Be very careful if you feel the reviewer’s comments are inaccurate and you wish to address them publicly, as this can come across as unprofessional or lead to an unpleasant exchange. If you choose this route, you should carefully and factually respond with your side of the story without sharing personal and private information about the borrower. Rise above and don’t be overly defensive or accusatory. State the facts as you see them while being professional and courteous.
Which of these looks better to potential borrowers: Listing all of the reasons why the upset customer is wrong, or being human, empathetic and apologetic, while demonstrating that you genuinely want to make the upset customer happy?
Seven steps to manage negative reviews
Follow these steps after receiving negative feedback to ensure you’re handling the review in an appropriate manner:
- Respond immediately.
- Be professional and not defensive.
- Contact the person if you know who they are, and apologize directly. (They might be willing to take down their review.)
- Solicit more reviews immediately from satisfied borrowers.
- Respond to all reviews, not just negative ones. This pushes the negative review farther down the page.
- Talk to your internal marketing team members. They might want to assist you in your responses to negative reviews.
- Look at how other lenders have responded to negative reviews. Big banks have large marketing teams; take note of how they handle bad reviews.
What should you take away from the review?
Reflect on what’s being said in the review. Is any of it justified? Can you spot patterns in your reviews? Could you have handled things differently or done a better job of managing the client’s expectations? How can you and your company avoid these types of reviews in the future?
Learning from what your customers are saying about you is one of the best ways to identify areas of your business in which you could improve. You might not initially agree with something one borrower says, but if several different reviews come back with the same pain points, then you should examine your processes and consider ways to improve client satisfaction.
