As the saying goes, "you can't please all people, all of the time". While this statement is true, the relevance and potential impact of disgruntled customers has been significantly amplified by the advent of social media. Businesses already know of the rising need to maintain an active social media presence, but along with that comes the growing impetus for brands to also monitor what people are saying about them online. Companies have to be prepared to respond to negative comments and negative reviews in a way that satisfies not only the person doing the complaining, but the wider the audience looking on and reading your response. In alignment with your social media monitoring process, it's also important to identify the threat level of each situation and set forth a plan of action for each, from a minimal issue right on up to a full-blown crisis.
Thinking that you might avoid social media for fear of negative comments is an idea of the past. Most companies that believed that line of thought quickly learned that customers will take to social media to talk about your company (good or bad) whether you're there or not. It's best to be in control of your social channels to so that you can monitor and respond to your fans, followers, and customers. When negative comments do occur, here's a step-by-step guide for turning that negative into a positive:
Step One: Respond as quickly as possible. Your social media department should work closely with customer service to formulate a plan of action so that you don't have to have a meeting before responding. Most people (especially disgruntled customers) will expect an answer the same day, often within hours of the complaint.
Step Two: Apologize. Even if the complaint is invalid or not the fault of your company, the first thing you should write in your response is an apology. Find a way to apologize about their experience without admitting fault. You can write something along the lines of "I am so sorry you had a bad experience." Or you can say "I'm sorry to hear you didn't enjoy it."
Step Three: Show empathy and sincerity. Show that you sincerely want to solve the problem and satisfy your customer. Don't ever copy and paste the same response - each response must be individual and personal. Usually the less you write in a response comment, the better. If you do write something, just state the facts and avoid a back-and-forth in the public social forum. Never discredit what the customer says. Often a common response might be "We sell thousands of these and never have this problem." Of course, this is usually in an effort to let them and everyone else reading know that it isn't a common problem, but there are two issues with that; you could make them feel like they are the only one this ever happened to and; you could make it seem like you don't believe them. Leave it at the apology from step two and go with the "less is more" approach.
Step Four: Take the conversation offline. Offer them a way to contact you outside of the public forum of the social channel. This is the best way to eliminate the back-and-forth that can often turn into an argument and make the matter worse rather than better. You can give them your email address, or, if you recognize them as a customer, you can use their information to make contact directly and let them know on the social channel response that you are emailing or calling them with a resolution. Keep in mind that others are reading this and analyzing whether or not they're satisfied with you based on how you handle your response. The main thing to remember is that others likely don't care about the particulars of the problem, they just want to see that you care, and that you respond quickly to resolve the issue.
Step Five: Follow up. Once you've contacted the customer offline and found a resolution, go back to the post and add a follow-up response. The response can thank them for the opportunity to resolve the issue. Alternatively, you can thank them for bringing the matter to their attention and let them know that you appreciated the opportunity to make it right. Once again, keep in mind that much of what you say on the social channel where others can read it is to show that you solve problems if they arise.
Summary and Takeaways
We hope that this 5 step approach will help you the next time you need to respond to a negative complaint on social media. There's little point trying to avoid social media in the hopes that you will avoid also negativity, customers will talk about you online, whether you're there or not. One of the most important aspects of social media marketing is monitoring your media mentions. Monitoring all of your media, public relations, and even offline mentions can be a daunting task, and there are tools and companies that can help you do this efficiently, so that you can be alerted to a mention and respond as soon as possible. Once you do recognize a problem, follow this step-by-step approach and respond quickly, apologize, be empathetic, take the conversation offline and then follow up. Remember that in addition to resolving the issue and making the customer who complained happy, that you are also letting others know that you care and that you fix problems.
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