How to Respond to Negative Reviews of Your Law Firm

April 3 , 2017 | BY Matthew Stark

Reputation Management for LawyersGetting reviews for your law firm is a great way for prospective clients to learn about your credibility and quality of legal services. It helps them gain confidence that you are the right attorney to handle their case. Unfortunately, all reviews you receive on Google and other internet profiles do not sing the praises of your law firm. There are bound to be a few negative reviews every now and then. Having negative reviews isn’t always a bad thing as they enable you to learn from your clients’ feedback and improve your services. However, it is important for you to know how to tackle them so that they don’t hurt your online reputation.

Stay Calm and Keep a Professional Tone

It is easy to lash out when someone speaks ill of your services when you think you have done a decent job. But if you reply to their negative Google review in a calm manner, it
will automatically make you look professional. Make sure that you ask them in a respectful way about their problem and suggest some effective solutions to make them change their opinion about your law firm.

Take the Conversation Offline

A good way to handle a negative Google review is to ask the client politely to take the matter in a private chat or offline. Requesting them to email or call you to better address their concern is not only great, but also allows you to handle the issue in a professional manner. It also shows others that you have taken notice of the client’s problem and are diligently trying to make things right. Even if the client doesn’t send an email or calls, anyone who will look at the review will see that you have taken measures to resolve their issues.

Time is of Essence

One of the most important aspects of replying to a compliant of your client is to do it in a timely manner. If you wait for days or weeks to respond them, it will reflect badly on your Google attorney profile. A professional, prompt reply under the negative review will make the client feel valued that you care about their issues and reflect positively on other clients as well.

Be Brief

It is better to reply with a brief comment rather than a long response covering details of your clients’ case. Not only that will breach the confidentiality clause in your contract, but also make the situation worse. Moreover, if you keep on replying to the original negative review, it will strengthen the link for Google, due to which it may start appearing on top in your reviews.

Bonus Tip

Before you can reply to a negative review, make sure you check its legitimacy. This means that you must check the reviewer’s profile to determine whether they are spammers. They can also be a competitor, former business partner, or someone you fought against in a case. If this is the case, you can request Google to take down the negative review by reporting or emailing its customer support and explaining the whole situation.

Managing your online reputation can be a daunting and frustrating task. But we can handle that for you. Contact FORWARD Marketing today at (888) 590-9687 for more information on how we can help you with online reputation management.