Social Media Tip of the Day or So – Negative Feedback

Negative comments and reviews are great opportunities!

Still to this day, many companies are apprehensive about allowing customers to freely post their opinions, reviews and comments about their products. Why? Because they fear the feedback may be negative. Don’t let this happen to you.

Let’s face it, no matter what service you offer, you can’t please absolutely everyone. No one expects every bit of feedback to be positive. For example, how often do you see 100% positive ratings for big sellers on eBay? Over the past few years, there’s been a movement towards allowing customers to speak openly about the products and services they use – this helps build credibility.

Turn “constructive” feedback into a positive customer experience.

Let’s face it; you have a customer who’s engaged enough in your products or services to actually write a negative review or rating. Reply directly and publicly – acknowledge their complaints, empathize with their situation, and try to offer a solution. Turn the unhappy customer into a happy one. Not only do you gain valuable customer insight, but you may be answering a question that many of your customers may have.

You may recall the story of Comcast and Twitter. A customer complained about a customer service issue with Comcast on Twitter, this snowballed and over the next few months, Comcast developed a Twitter profile and began interacting, communicating and helping its customers directly. Customer satisfaction went through the roof, and Comcast regained its image as a company that cared about its customers.

Here’s a good rule of thumb, if the comment is positive, thank the commenter, if it’s negative, thank the commenter and try to offer a solution, if the comment uses abusive language, delete it.