It's never easy to hear negative feedback. Often, negative feedback means you've lost a customer's loyalty or that your relationship is in jeopardy. Even worse, if negative feedback is posted online, poor reviews can cost you potential customers.

Here are five tips for managing negative feedback in your salon or spa.

1. Collect As Much Feedback As Possible

The first step in dealing with negative feedback is to collect feedback from as many customers as possible. This helps you deal with unhappy customers quickly, while also providing positive salon reviews you can put to good use (more on that later).

Here are a few ways to increase the amount of feedback you collect:

• Ensure that every customer is given the opportunity to leave feedback (make sure staff can't choose who is offered a feedback form). Know how to elevate customer experience.
• Make leaving feedback easy. This means no lengthy surveys, just simple positive or negative responses customers can select in seconds so you gather at least basic feedback even if they opt not to leave longer reviews.
• Make leaving feedback worth your customers' time. Offering loyalty points is a great way to encourage customers to leave feedback. Young customers, in particular, are 50 percent more likely to write reviews in exchange for loyalty points.

2. Get Feedback Quickly

Requesting feedback immediately after a customer appointment helps you discover unhappy customers before they leave your salon or spa. This gives you time to talk to the customer and address their concerns before they leave.

Use iPads or other mobile devices to collect feedback during the checkout process. Your customers are undoubtedly comfortable with mobile devices, and with digital input you have the added advantage of ensuring that feedback isn’t altered by staff to cover up anything negative.

3. Respond to Negative Feedback Promptly

Another reason to use digital feedback is that you can configure your salon management software to send text message alerts to managers when negative feedback is submitted. This helps managers deal with negative feedback promptly, even when they're away from the location.

Regardless of how you capture feedback, make sure you respond to it quickly. The ideal scenario is before the customer leaves the salon or spa but if that's not possible, reach out to customers by phone as soon as you can. If you address the customer quickly, you can prevent a negative review from going online.

Remember that communicating face-to-face or even over the phone ensures that an unhappy customer can’t publicize your email or private message conversation.

4. Follow Through on Issues

When customers take the time to share concerns with you, you need to ensure their feedback is addressed. Before you roll out a feedback system, create a feedback process to identify how you'll capture issues, who will own them and how you'll track issues through to closure.

While some issues are easily fixed, creating processes for feedback will ensure more complicated issues don't get lost in the shuffle. When issues are resolved, make sure you always reach out to the customer to personally let them know. This personal touch lets customers know their feedback matters, and offers you the opportunity to convert an unhappy customer into a loyal one.

5. Drown Out Negative Reviews With Positive Reviews

No matter how great your team is, you'll always receive at least some negative feedback. And bigger businesses will always receive more negative reviews online. While you can’t remove negative reviews, you can drown them out with positive customer reviews.

You’ve already ensured that you’re consistently asking for feedback. When customers leave feedback, make sure you're asking for their permission to share these reviews online. This can be as simple as a checkbox that they can select before submitting their review.

To sweeten the deal, offer customers a reason to allow you to share their feedback. Consider offering bonus loyalty points for customers who allow you to share their reviews, and even more loyalty points for customers who write their own reviews on third-party sites like Google and Yelp.

Flood your Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and even your own services menu with real glowing reviews, and you’ll effectively drown out those other negative reviews.

To learn more, check out our blog on Boosting Your Business Through Online Reviews

Hearing negative feedback is never enjoyable, but these strategies can make it easier to turn frustrated customers into loyal ones. Zenoti's salon and spa management software solution makes it easy to capture feedback in seconds. Click here to request a demo and learn more.