While positive reviews can help employers attract top talent, negative reviews can have the opposite effect, making qualified candidates think twice about applying. Negative employee reviews can also hurt your visibility on platforms like Glassdoor and Indeed, since many job seekers filter their searches to only show top-rated companies.
By responding to reviews skillfully, you can counteract some of the damage to your reputation, while also showing job seekers that you're committed to making your business a great place to work.
In this guide to review management for employers, we'll cover all the basics you need to get started, including:
There are three components to a successful employee review management strategy:
Here are some of the most common reasons why employees, interns, and interviewees leave negative reviews or ratings on employment sites like Glassdoor:
Each best practice is accompanied by an example negative review response template. You can customize and reuse these templates to fit your organization’s needs, enabling you to quickly produce polished, personalized responses to all types of negative reviews.
It's important to thank your reviewers for sharing their feedback, even when you receive a negative review. Thanking reviewers demonstrates your respect for employees' time and insight, which sends an encouraging signal to job-seekers checking out your company ratings.
Here are a few examples of ways to say thank you for a negative review:
Here are more tips and templates for thanking reviewers.
A bad review from a current or former employee can feel like a personal attack, but it's important to keep a calm and clear mind when you're considering your response. Keep your tone courteous, avoid typos or misspellings, and never resort to being sarcastic or arguing with the reviewer.
Most review platforms have community guidelines banning certain types of content, such as hate speech, profanity, off-topic comments, spam, harassment, and offensive language. If a review sounds hostile or threatening (or violates other platform rules), you can simply flag it instead of immediately responding.
Imagine a job seeker visits your company profile on Glassdoor, Indeed, or a similar review site. They start browsing your reviews — only to see the same generic response copied and pasted over and over to each reviewer.
Personalizing your responses shows that your company values its employees and treats them like individuals. Customizing your responses also gives you an opportunity to incorporate branding into your replies, as well as address specific complaints featured in the review.
Here are a few examples of how you can personalize a review response:
It's important to present your business as transparent, helpful, and responsive — especially when an employee (or customer) experiences an issue. Offering a brief but sincere apology is a simple way to show empathy, demonstrate that you read the review carefully, and reassure job seekers that your business is committed to learning from its mistakes.
It's important to show job seekers that you take accountability and are serious about addressing issues raised by current or former employees.
At the same time, you should avoid discussing personal or sensitive details in a public forum like a review site, such as details about compensation or sick leave.
Instead of trying to “settle things” publicly in your response, direct the conversation offline so that issues can be discussed thoroughly. Here are some ways to nudge the conversation toward a more private setting:
Recent survey data from BrightLocal shows that 11% of people expect businesses to reply to reviews within a single day, 14% expect a response "the following day," and 34% expect the response "within two or three days." Replying to bad reviews within one day ensures that you meet most consumers' expectations when it comes to reasonable response times.
Whether your business is large, small, brand-new, or well-established, you can implement multiple strategies to improve the efficiency of your current review response process.
Here are three of the most effective ways to increase your response speed — without decreasing your response quality.
Numerous AI tools, including free options like Semrush and Copy.ai, let users instantly generate text based on a specific prompt or question. For instance, you can ask ChatGPT, "What is an example of a good response to a negative online review from a former employee?"
You can brand and personalize each response by editing the AI-generated text, like inserting your company name and referencing details from the original review. Learn more about the best AI for responding to reviews in 2024.
Using templates, like the negative review response templates in this guide, is an effective shortcut for reducing the volume of content you need to write (and proofread) yourself.
You can also create templates based on common or recurring complaints, such as templates to respond to negative reviews about employee compensation, overtime policies, vacation/sick day policies, remote work/WFH policies, or professional development programs.
Text generators and review response templates make it easier to reply to reviewers by providing ready-made content. But what if there was an even more efficient, convenient approach?
If you’re looking for a start-to-finish, turnkey solution, consider leveraging a done-for-you review response service. This type of service not only generates review responses, but also takes care of related tasks like:
Most review platforms, like Yelp and Tripadvisor, are focused on consumer reviews of products and services. However, there are also numerous platforms dedicated to employment reviews. These platforms enable current and former employees to share candid, anonymous feedback about their experiences, making them crucial for employers to monitor carefully.
Here are six of the top employment review sites for business owners to watch in 2024:
FairyGodBoss, which calls itself the "largest online career community for women," is a platform that features job search tools, company profiles, employee reviews, help resources like podcasts, and other employment-related information.
Its purpose is to help job seekers share and find transparent information about issues impacting women in the workplace, such as unequal pay, workplace diversity, gender discrimination, sexual harassment, maternity leave, and more.
Users must be logged in to share comments or view full reviews on the Fairygodboss platform.
Boasting "more than 55 million company reviews and insights," Glassdoor is one of the largest and best-known employment review sites.
Glassdoor enables users to anonymously share reviews, salary details, and other information about their employment experiences.
Users must be logged into the platform to view and respond to Glassdoor reviews.
For a deeper dive into this topic, check out our guide to responding to negative Glassdoor reviews.
Indeed, which describes itself as the "#1 worldwide site for job seekers," is an employment platform that offers "tools for job search, resumes, company reviews and more."
According to Indeed, the platform features an incredible "500+ million ratings and reviews," making Indeed an essential site for any employer to watch.
Users can post ratings and reviews anonymously while sharing their job title and employment status (current or former employee). To view all of a company's reviews, the user must be logged into their Indeed account.
Vault is a comprehensive employment website predominantly aimed at college students. It features company reviews and rankings, job search tools for various industries, career advice on topics like networking and cover letters, and a directory of internship programs for students.
Each company profile features an "At a Glance" overview with pros and cons ("Uppers" and "Downers") pulled from user reviews.
Vault enables users to share company ratings anonymously but verifies reviews to ensure that they come from real employees.
CareerBliss is an online platform for job seekers that, according to its website, features "over 8 million job postings, 4 million salaries and 700,000 company reviews."
CareerBliss users can explore "job reviews and salary data to find a career that best matches you."
Not only can users leave online reviews, but also rate specific aspects of their employment experience on a scale of 1 (worst) to 5 (best), such as "company culture," "growth opportunities," and "work setting."
CareerBliss also features company-specific FAQs, such as "Does [ Company Name ] pay their employees well?" and "How satisfied are employees working at [ Company Name ]?"
As EU-Startups explains, "Kununu.com is only available in German speaking countries like Germany, Austria and Switzerland." However, while the website is presented in German by default, English speakers can use Google's translate feature to easily browse the platform and gain insights about the international job market.
According to Ambit Group, Kununu "already counts more than five million ratings for 1 million companies," including Amazon, Aldi, Siemens, BMW, and SAP.
Kununu follows a vigorous review verification process that uses algorithms and manual checks to help ensure that reviews are legitimate.
Glassdoor, Indeed, FairyGodBoss, Kununu, CareerBliss, and Vault are some of the most popular employment review sites — but there are also countless others, with new apps and websites for job-seekers launching every day.
Managing multiple profiles and listings consumes your team's valuable time. ResponseScribe offers a faster and easier way to engage with employee feedback.
ResponseScribe is an intuitive, cloud-based platform that simplifies reputation management by monitoring and responding to employee reviews on over 50 websites and mobile apps, including:
Our platform gives you the flexibility to choose human-written or AI-enhanced review responses. Human responses are delivered in under 24 hours guaranteed, and AI responses are ready within minutes. No matter which strategy you choose, every response is custom-made and crafted to align with your messaging.
Stay in the loop with text or email notifications, get real-time reporting and insights, and effortlessly manage all of your listings from a single, secure dashboard. Have questions or need assistance? Our U.S.-based customer support team is always available to help.
Learn more about how ResponseScribe works, or explore for yourself with a free trial today.
An unhappy customer or disgruntled employee can hurt your business with negative reviews. Take back control of your online reputation with an AI-enhanced review response service trusted by over 10,000 businesses, from Kia, Wyndham, and Jersey Mike's Subs to AAA, Chick-fil-A, and Burger King.
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