SOME companies understand social media and how to deal with negative comments about their businesses.
But most small and medium-sized firms prefer to ignore the comments rather than deal with the problem head-on, as Mocks founder Lara Solomon has.
Last year Solomon decided to swap PR for social media as the main marketing method for her business, which sells sock-like mobile phone covers in Australia, Britain and the US.
She focused on a Facebook page but didn’t anticipate the full consequences of engaging with her customers on social media sites.
The Mocks brand attracted about 12,000 Facebook fans (it now has more than 15,000) within three months, with the result that sales doubled in the final quarter of last year compared with 2008. What Solomon didn’t expect was the magnitude of the task of dealing with online comments from mainly 12 to 20-year-old girls.
Many of the comments related to postal problems, particularly in the US, with fans saying they were angry and leaving negative comments.
Others were just upset they hadn’t won competitions.
Solomon’s YouTube channel, where she gives simple social media advice, received personal insults. On YouTube one person called her a “foolish woman” because her advice was basic. She responded with a polite “you are entitled to your view”.
“I did respond to them all and I didn’t delete any,” she says. “And I responded in a polite way.”
At Mocks the five-strong team tackles criticism head-on and puts extra effort into ensuring delivery or any other problems or criticisms are solved, turning disgruntled customers into happy fans.
“I’m a big believer in taking those negative comments and turning them into a positive,” Solomon says.
With negative and offensive comments she often will take a deep breath first rather than tackle the issue in the heat of the moment.
“Sometimes I will come back half an hour later when I have thought of a polite way to respond,” she says.
When Theo Thomas was running the listings site Dlook.com.au, which he sold last year, he encouraged people to leave comments and for listed businesses to respond.
What he found was that 78 per cent of comments were negative against 22 per cent positive, and that most businesses preferred not to deal with negative comments.
“The biggest problem was that more than half the businesses that had negative comments insisted that their listings be removed from the site,” he says. “People get very intimidated — small business particularly — by negative feedback.
“Nobody can say every single customer they service is happy. What I was trying to do was encourage businesses to respond to negative comments and offer some kind of recompense. I found many small businesses and many large ones just have blinkers on.
“But with the exponential growth of social media you have to respond.”
Solomon admits that things do go wrong in business all the time.
What counts is dealing with each problem in a positive way and turning negative customers into fans, just as a company would when dealing with people on the telephone.
While Solomon signs off on all content on her social media and websites, her employees are trained to handle comments, most of which are responding to questions, positive feedback and minor delivery problems.
“It’s all about trust and making sure staff are trained well to deal with comments,” she says.
Simon Foster, who runs the Australian version of Shoeboxed, a site that stores online receipts and paperwork, actively sought comments on local websites when the venture launched earlier this year.
Foster found that a lot of traffic was directed to Shoeboxed.com.au from the Ozbargain website, where some people were disgruntled with a special offer. He responded politely and factually, and many other people posted comments defending the company.
“If you do it well it will amplified positively,” Foster says.
“If you are short with a customer and hide behind anonymity people will see through it. Treat customers exactly the same way you’d treat customers on the phone.”
DEALING WITH ONLINE REVIEWS
Always identify yourself as coming from your company. Many businesses make the mistake of leaving anonymous positive comments on their own behalf, which customers can see through.
Don’t be nasty. Treat negative comments with respect and answer politely. If issues are especially tricky ask the customer to email you and take the discussion offline.
Don’t delete comments. Deleting negative comments is a sure-fire way to inflame disgruntled customers. But it is OK to delete offensive language. Email the user to say you are deleting offensive language or the whole comment if nothing can be salvaged.
Be real. Corporate and PR speak doesn’t go down well in social media. Be helpful and deal with the problem as you would deal with a customer on the phone.
Deal with comments as a company rather than as an individual.
Ensure comments are dealt with immediately. Social media is immediate and commenters get aggravated if they have to wait days for a response.
Deal with the good comments and not just the bad. Social media is about having a conversation, not one-way feedback.
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