Strategies for Managing Negative Reviews on ChatGPT

Customer reviews are an inescapable reality of running a business. The internet has been evolving how customers can share their thoughts for years, and now AI platforms like ChatGPT represent another stage in that evolution. 

You may already be experienced at dealing with the occasional negative review, but what happens when AI platforms share or summarize the reviews? Does that change the equation?

We’ve outlined the core strategy for managing negative reviews on ChatGPT below.

Step 1: Discover What ChatGPT Is Saying About Your Business

How do you manage bad reviews on ChatGPT? 

Begin by testing the platform to see what it says about you. ChatGPT grabs information from multiple sources, such as Google, social media, and forums like Reddit. 

ChatGPT can parse negative reviews about your organization and present users with a summary based on patterns of sentiment and repeated phrases (think “bad service” or “product takes too long to arrive”). 

Your first impression is ruined—and they never even visited your website. 

What makes AI reputation management so hard is that it’s not something you can fix directly on the platform. Instead, you must take steps outside of the platform to influence it enough to change its summary. 

Searching for your business on ChatGPT and similar platforms will be something you will have to do repeatedly since it may generate different responses each time. You will also have to research where AI large language models are getting their sources to prevent any reputation management gaps. 

Step 2: Respond to Reviews—Even the Negative Ones

We get it. It’s easier to pretend negative reviews don’t exist, but responding to them is important. In fact, the best practice is to do so within 24 hours if possible. 

Responding to reviews shows initiative and grace when done correctly. 

However, you cannot directly respond to reviews that appear on ChatGPT. Instead, to properly change what it generates, you need to respond to reviews on various external platforms. 

Responses should include an apology, acknowledgement of the customer’s problem, and an explanation of how you’re correcting the issue. This could mean sending a replacement, contacting a media source to correct a mistake they wrote about your business, or a larger change to business operations. 

Step 3: Make Changes Based on Key Takeaways from Negative Reviews

Most of the time, trends in negative reviews aren’t a coincidence. They represent an opportunity for you to improve the way you do business—and to do more than respond to individual public complaints. 

You can either detect patterns of problems mentioned in reviews manually or use AI to do so. 

One study used a large language model (LLM) to read reviews and offer suggestions for improvement. The team analyzed 20,000 Starbucks reviews on Yelp, and the LLM pinpointed 10 broad categories that received consistent feedback. The model recommended three to six suggestions for each category.  

Actively addressing recurrent problems shows customers you are listening to them. It should also inspire you to make changes across your organization to address the gap between how your brand is currently being perceived and how you want it to be viewed. 

Step 4: Publicly Address Issues in Owned Content

While you can’t remove genuine reviews, you can change what appears when people search your business’s name. You can do this through tried and true SEO techniques.

What do we mean? 

• Announce new initiatives on your website and socials.
• Respond to reviews with the solution to their problems.
• Write press releases about the changes your business is making.
• Write a blog post explaining the timeline if the changes will happen in phases.
• Share positive reviews once changes are implemented.
• Add an FAQ addressing the issue and what’s changing.
• Encourage customers to leave positive reviews.
• Update your Google Business Profile with more comprehensive information about your business.

As you make these changes and update content, make sure to check in on what appears when you search your business on ChatGPT. It may take time for a change to occur, so have patience and continue to check. 

See how Big Leap changed what AI Overviews said about Awardco.

Online Reputation Management Is About Human Connection

With or without AI, reputation management requires listening and understanding your customers. They want to be heard and acknowledged. How you do that depends on your business, but following this strategy will help you get the word out.

You don’t need to tackle ChatGPT online review management alone. Partner with Big Leap; we have the knowledge and skills to work with the ever-adapting organic landscape.