No one wants customer complaints. Especially not on a social media platform where thousands of people can see the complaint before you even get a chance to respond. However, getting a negative comment doesn’t have to represent your business in a negative light. In fact, if you acknowledge and respond to negative comments in a responsive, honest and helpful way, such comments can actually strengthen your brand image.
Watch the video below to find out more.
We hope you now feel more confident about responding to comments on social media. Stay tuned for episode 3!
Video Transcript [edited]
“Hello, everyone. Joe Fox from Studio Culture here. We’re a creative and strategic digital marketing agency, and what we’re doing today is adding value [to your business] and giving tips to business owners. In this episode, I’m going to give you a few quick tips for how your business can handle trolls on social media pages.
Picture which platform you’re on – Let’s say it’s Facebook. If you get negative comments on Facebook, a lot of people are going to see them, and they will see them much more quickly than they would on other platforms. So, it is essential that you know the best way to handle things. Remember, the basic principles of business still apply: the customer is always right. I don’t care what anyone says. The customer has a louder voice than you do in these situations, so you need to listen to them, and I mean genuinely listen to them. Whether they’re complaining about the flavour of your food, the service they received or the quality of a product you sold them, listen to what they have to say and show them that you are listening.
Acknowledge what they are saying. You don’t necessarily have to say that they’re right, but you do have to acknowledge that they’ve said something, and you do have to apologise that they’ve had this negative experience. However – first things first, you need to get them out of the public eye and steer them towards an email. Do this by responding to their comment with a simple “I’m sorry that you weren’t happy with the product/service [personalised for your unique situation!] that you experienced today. What can we do to improve? Send us an email.”
Nine times out of 10, they probably won’t email you. They will probably just leave it at that. But it’s just the fact that you’ve acknowledged them. If they do send you through an email, be polite, be respectful and acknowledge what you have done wrong. Acknowledge that the customer is right, and work out a fair and reasonable solution. I’m not going to give you all of the secret sauce on these channels, but realistically, this is going to be enough for you to be able to deal with basic trolls.
For Instagram, it’s basically the same thing, but the case won’t be as dangerous [i.e. likely to spread and be seen by thousands!] or as time-sensitive as Facebook. However, you still want to reply asap. People can get very heated, and if their complaint isn’t recognised things can spiral out of control relatively quickly. Once again, just try and take them off social media and to a closed environment where you can talk to them like a normal human being and they can cool down.
Thanks, guys. I hope you enjoyed these tips. I look forward to adding more value to your day.
Joe Fox, Studio Culture.”
