Some of us are a lot more sensitive than others. Make a bad or negative comment, and some people will break into tears. Some will take that on board and change their behavior; others will turn into a werewolf and bite right back!
Dealing with negative comments on social media is a lot more different than dealing with usual complaints, received y chat, email or phone. And there is one reason for it: it is too easy to turn a social media complaint into a complete disaster.
Why should I care about negative comments and complaints on social media?
Social media is a public place. Every time a user writes something wrong about your product or service, the whole audience on social media can see it. They will judge you based on different criteria:
· How quickly did you reply?
· What was your reaction?
· What was your customer’s reaction?
· How did the whole thing end?
Social media is all about immediate reaction and quick response. People present on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter literally live there and can post in the morning, while having breakfast, after dinner or even in the middle of the night.
If you choose to have a business profile, you should be ready to do the same. You might think that no one will notice one negative comment, but they definitely will! And if you don’t get response, they’ll get the idea of you not caring about your PR and your customers.
How am I supposed to reply social media complaints if I don’t see them?
It’s simple to reply to a complaint that was sent directly to your email, right? In the case of social media, it isn’t that easy! If you are lucky enough, users will tag your brand in their posts, and you will get notifications about it. Things start to get more complicated when people are sharing a lousy word of mouth about your brand, and you can’t respond to it because you can’t see it.
This is where you Google Alerts comes handy.
Enter your Brand’s name and optimize your settings. Remember you can choose more than one keyword alert for the search to get more specific information. This way you will get notified immediately when your keyword was mentioned, once a day or once a week. You can choose the language, region, and source (e.g., blogs, news, videos.)
How quickly should I response?
You should reply as soon as you’ve received a negative comment. Try to aim for responding in at least15 minutes to make a good impression, but if you can’t do that, try to answer in an hour. According to researches, 43% of your customers will expect a “one hour” response time and 30% of them expect a reply within 30 minutes.
The faster you reply, the better you will look in the eyes of the social media community. Yes, there is no mercy!
How should I react to negative comments?
If you let yourself discharge in public, you’ll be judged by your behavior. You might find yourself discussing with other people who will stand in the trolls’ defense and trust me, that’s the last thing you want! So, whether you’re speaking with an angry troll or customer, make sure you are doing the following:
· appreciate them for their opinion (try not to be too formal, just a “thanks for reaching out to us” should be excellent)
· apologize for the inconvenience (“sorry to hear that you didn’t like our services/ you’re having problems with our product”)
· inspire them to send you a private message.
The last thing is essential: whatever happens, you want the unsatisfied customer to send you a private message.
Should I delete negative comments?
No!I know, you might be intrigued to delete them, but you should never, ever do that.
The thing is, if you delete a real comment from an angry customer, you can be sure they’ll come back: louder, more upset and more frustrated. Also, negative comments show that you’re a genuine, honest brand. You shouldn’t think about dealing with negative trolls and complaints on social media as an offensive obligation but more as an opportunity.
Opportunity to turn your customers’ lousy experience into a good one and to turn complaints into compliments.