Lessons

Lesson Info

How to Tackle Negative Reviews and Turn Them into Positive Ones

Now, I would love to sit here and say that I have never received a negative review on fiber. But the reality is that no matter how hard you try and no matter you know, how much you pour your heart into every single project, there are some clients that you know, just want to be challenging and kind of see the world burn. Sometimes it is actually the freelancer's fault. And there are some cases where I have literally canceled a gig just because I haven't been up to the standard, especially in the early days when I wasn't really that experienced in regard to handling clients or using the fiber platform. So I made a few mistakes on my naming gig. I also have a couple of negative reviews as well, which I want to go through with you. And I want to essentially explain exactly what happened in each particular circumstance to ultimately give you a little bit of peace of mind that even if you get a negative review on Fiver and a one star review, which is kind of like a death sentence in the worl...

d of fiver. It isn't the end of the world and you can actually use it to your advantage to turn things around. And I'll actually show you an example of a five star review that I got on the platform, which was originally going to be a one star review. So I'll show you how you can turn everything around to actually be a positive and actually showcase that you're a professional and that clients want to work with you. And you can also highlight the fact that these particular clients were just a little bit difficult in a little bit overbearing. So let's dive into the reviews and I'll explain each of them specifically. So this is actually pretty fun. I haven't read these reviews for quite a long time, but the first one is as follows. It was one of the worst experiences I've ever had poor customer service. They only check their inbox once a day and sometimes not even once the service was just awful. These people are clearly untrained and lack creativity. This was four years ago, by the way, I do appreciate the effort but genuinely think they are unqualified and would not recommend them. So I responded with being as professional as possible saying this is another prime example of what happens when a client feels they know better and don't follow the process that has helped hundreds of other businesses find a great brand name. Basically what happened with this particular client, which I remember very clearly. Basically what happened was they were trying to tell me that the names did not meet the brief. So I sent them a full breakdown of the neurological reasons why that particular word or that particular phrase or that particular name was connected to the meaning that we'd already confirmed in the decision stage when we just kind of setting directions and setting ideas and they just basically disagree with me. I think they were just looking for a refund. And when I didn't offer the refund, they basically just said, ok, we can't get the refund. So we're just going to literally chop this guy down as much as possible. And this is what happens. I could have just canceled the order and avoided getting a one star review. But I put so much effort into this particular package that I knew what they were trying to do. You know, there was no way in, you know, in any stretch of reality that not a single name was hitting the mark and not a single name was even something that we could learn from within the process. So they were just being extremely dramatic and they weren't really respecting me as a professional. So I thought, ok, you know, if you wanna, if you wanna waste my time, I'm going to charge you for that, waste of time. And then I essentially said, developing a great brand name needs great communication and cannot be pulled out of a hat like magic, best of luck. So I just basically said, listen, if you want to get the best result, you need to communicate with us such as the case of pulling out a magic rabbit out of a hat. It is a case of communicating and really making sure that we explore all variations of each option and learning throughout the process. I think they expected us to get it absolutely spot on. Perfect first time, which is now something I've refined within our process to say, listen in our first initial presentation with the brand names. We're not looking to find the perfect brand name. We're looking to learn as much as possible that takes all the pressure off the client and that allows us to have an actual conversation about what they like and what they don't like. So on the second attempt of developing brand names, we know exactly what their personal preferences are, so what they like and what they don't like. Anyway, let's dive into another review and see what this lovely client had to say about me. So would not accept cancellation of the order that I requested before the gig was remotely complete. Never received a complete gig was not happy with the initial work. So basically with this client again, they basically received the presentation as we sent it with like everyone else and they ultimately didn't reply to us and the gig was automatically closed. Now they started to try and request a refund after we'd already sent the names. We'd already been through the whole process and they didn't give us any feedback. They literally just wanted to request a refund and just take the names that we basically worked a week on to develop and to trademark check and all this stuff. And it just wasn't something that I'm going to accept if we work super hard to actually develop the names. And we spend a week of our time to really develop the names and explore lots of different options and work really hard to develop those ideas. There's not a hell's chance that I'm just going to let a client not give us any feedback, not me with us whatsoever and just take all our creative work and then just expect a refund. It doesn't make any sense if they went through the entire process. And then by the end, they said, listen, Scott, I'm not 100 per cent happy with the names that have been developed. Can we arrange something and can we maybe come to some sort of agreement? Fair enough. We would be open to that if we really feel like we'd missed the mark and we hadn't met the standards that we would usually meet in regards to branding. But the reality is we have worked with 2000 clients minimum in the last couple of years since this review has been posted. And every single one of those particular clients have reached a result solely because we've learned from these types of experiences where we've said listen, the initial presentation is not about getting it right. First time, we need to learn as much as possible and then go for from there. So let's look at another review and we can learn a little bit more about how we can turn things around because actually, in regard to this review, I wasn't able to reply in time to the review. So I wasn't actually able to leave kind of a response to their reply, which was unfortunate, but whatever it is, what it is in regard to this specific client, he said that I have asked for names five or six for their sellers and does not offer refund when the seller only provides names of existing companies of which is not what I am needing or looking for. I have had several E mails and being my first time using fiber, I will not be using this company again. He said that he was disputing charges with the bank as they claim that they have not refunded 100 per cent satisfied. So basically, he goes on and on to say that I missed the board in regards to the presentation and the ideas and they automatically completed the audit even though it was not complete. So ultimately, this is another case of fiver automatically completing the gate. I sent him the initial presentation and essentially he didn't reply in time and it automatically completed. I tried to reach out as I always do to say, listen, it's automatically completed. Please reach out to me if you have any further questions. And obviously, once you've reviewed the presentation, please let me know. So we can actually discuss things. Don't leave a review without actually going through the full process because that's just the initial presentation. He wasn't happy with the initial presentation for whatever reason. He said that we missed the ball on it and that's fine. But you need to talk to us about it. Don't just leave a really negative review and then expect a refund without going through the full process. You've only went through like 25 per cent of the process. So it isn't really fair to assess the entire process on just 25 per cent of the experience. So then I simply responded with unfortunately, what happens when the client feels they know better and they don't want to follow the process that is tried and tested to great shame. As we did send five messages before the gate closed, we have contacted FIFA about the unfair review. But best of luck with your business, Jeremy. Then the day I did message them five times when the gig was closed and before it was closed to try and alert them that the gig was going to close automatically. They didn't listen to me. I can't do a whole lot about it. One thing that you really need to keep in mind when you are dealing with clients is you can only do what's inside your control. So if a client is not responding to you or they're just not communicating as much as they should be, then you can't control that. You can, is say, listen, I need you to communicate a little bit more. Is that OK? And if they don't want to, the result is based on their ability to communicate, it's not based on you. OK? So you need to take a certain level of accountability but not too much where you're actually carrying the client as well, you need to guide them, but don't feel like you have to carry them on your back the entire way up the hill because that's just not fair. And in regard to this particular review, which is the last one star review, not the standard or level expected. So essentially I ended up sending this client like 10 messages, asking them to have a conversation in regard to the names. Instead, they completely ignored me and had no passion for the work and finding an effective name. Good luck with your business. The reason why this creative process doesn't work and we end up getting like one star reviews out of the 200 almost 300 reviews that we have, we've got star reviews. This is simply down to clients, just not communicating and not following the process. And now I literally say to clients, if you don't want to follow the process, go and work with someone else because we don't want to work with people who are going to make our life a living hell. Basically. Now, I just want to give you a little bit of an insight in regard to this particular client and our engagement and how we basically ended up turning around from a potential one star review into possibly one of the best reviews. And I've ever received to be completely brutally honest. And it was actually one of the most satisfying clients that I've had to work with, even though it was one of the most challenging projects that I've had to endure and I'll explain why. So essentially Andrew was looking for a name was Korean. I don't speak South Korean. I don't speak any other language apart from English. So that was quite challenging in itself. But basically, Andrew was very, very detailed in his response. And as you can see here a little bit earlier on in the process, this is all of the feedback that he gave me. He said that he literally took two or three hours to reply and give me all the feedback that I needed. Now, this is the first set of messages. This is the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth, you know, it goes on and on and on and on and on and he, you know, this is the he he sends so many messages throughout the process, including other things and like it literally went on and on and on. And I said, listen, this is all incredible. This is exactly what we need. And he said, honestly, I tried my best to give you enough feedback. And then at that point, I basically broke everything down to really make sure that we were, you know, focused on getting the best possible result for Andrew and also saving him a ton of time. So he started complaining, saying that he essentially had spent three hours on developing feedback for us. As you can see, you know, he did send a lot of feedback, but that's not what we asked for. We simply asked for. Although I was obviously grateful for the amount of feedback that he sent and it was incredible and it really helped us, all we asked for was three bullet points of pros and cons for each brand name. And as we go through the last few messages that we went through, you know, we were still very, very far away from what he wanted to get. And, you know, we were looking at other words, we were looking at other things and I basically said, listen, I'm going to be at my computer for the next three hours. Let's jump on a call and let's basically get this resolved. I jumped on a call with him and I sat on the call with him for basically, you know, maybe 1.5 or two hours. And we sat there and we basically just sat there and we, we just fleshed it out. We figured it out and that was when he left the review literally about an hour later. And he basically said Formost, all the positive reviews written about Scott are true. Communicate with him was extremely fast open and responsive. But I would like to highlight how willing Scott was to roll up his sleeves and dig deep into the mud. Right alongside me. Entrepreneurship is a long and hard road, but people like Scott make it a bit more bearable. I give Scott extremely difficult task and it was extremely difficult to be completely honest. He had super high standards, but that's why we do what we do. That's why we pull the table and try our best. That's all you can do is try your best for an unbelievably nitpicky and finicky Asian marketplace. Scott handled it like it was John Wick. Thank you and quickly and effectively got things. Anyway, you get the idea. This was an absolute pleasure for me to help Andrew and really help him get over the finishing line, I believe, name that we came up with was imagine with e instead of I, so it kind of worked really well in the Korean language, which he was really happy with and it wasn't trademarked and it wasn't protected anywhere. So that was great as well. So basically what I'm saying is as long as you really care about getting your clients results and as long as you just respect yourself and you don't, you know, let the clients, you know, take the, you know, the, the mickey out of you, you know, you, you, you can get some really great reviews and it's very rare that you're going to get a review, you know, like the one star reviews that I've actually had on my, you know, particular profile, but it does happen, you know, it's not the end of the world. It isn't great when it happens, but you'll get better, you'll recover. And as you can see, you know, all the one star reviews on my profile a role from four years ago, that's the last one that happened and it was simply just a case of me, I think just not being experienced in managing the process and maybe following up a little bit more. But ultimately, sometimes you just run into some clients that are just a little bit difficult as well. So hopefully that was helpful just showing you a little bit about my experience on the fiber platform. But anyway, I will see you in the next lesson. Thank you.