Four Effective Ways To Handle Social Media ComplaintsAndOne That's A Massive Failure

A Florida apartment complex (The Windermere Cay) recentlystarted forcing potential tenants to sign a “social media addendum” to theirlease applications, requiring them to agree to pay $10,000 for any bad reviewabout the complex that they, as tenants, might be tempted to place online.

While it is understood that business owners are nervousabout the hazards of operating in the social media-powered, customer-empoweredworld of commerce today,  there are muchbetter ways to deal with social media complaints, including preventing them inthe first place (though not in the way the apartment complex tried!) andaddressing them thoughtfully and sincerely when they crop up.

Here are four pointers when addressing (or avoiding) socialmedia complaints.

1. Avoid triggering the Streisand Effect

When someone uses social media to attack your business, yourfirst urge, naturally, may be to call lawyers on the critic, or otherwise tryto intimidate the attacker into removing the complaint.  Think carefully before taking that course ofaction. The rule online is that a defensive reaction tends to bring additionalpublicity—very negative publicity.  Thisrule even has a name: the Streisand Effect, named after Barbra Streisand, whosued a photographer in a failed attempt to remove a photo of the singer’sprecariously sited mansion from the California Coastal Records Project.Streisand’s aggressive reaction to free expression offended some netizens and titillatedothers.  The result was far widerdistribution of the photograph she wanted to suppress – on T-shirts, websites,coffee mugs – and a permanent blemish on her public image.

Over and over, brands and businesses discover theinviolability of the Streisand Effect the hard way. Threatening your customersalmost never solves the harm they are causing you, and it often backfiresdramatically.

2. Reach out directly to online complainers

Suppose that you’ve spotted the following outrageous tweetabout your firm:

Company X double-bills customers—Must Think We RSuckrs—#FAIL

This is insulting, and hard to handle. Not only will yourstaff need to suppress the urge to respond angrily, they also will need toprepare a response that is thoughtful and positive. A thoughtful and positiveresponse in a situation like this is rare precisely because it’s so hard forsomebody who has just been insulted to muster thoughtful positivity.

But that rarity makes it powerful: A thoughtful and positiveresponse can come as such a surprise to an online critic that it can help toconvert the critic into your advocate. At the least, it will stanch yourlosses, as described below.

First, however, in order to respond, you’ll first need toreach your critic. How can you do that online? That depends on yourprofessional relationship with the critic. If the person behind this messagefollows you on Twitter, or if she’s in your database, send her a direct, “backchannel”message. Include a real, monitored email address and phone number. Otherwise,reply publicly in the same forum she chose. List offline ways to reach you(including a real, monitored email address and/or phone), and express yourregret and concern.

Contacting a social media critic to request an offlineconversation is the digital equivalent of ushering a loud and angry customerinto your office for a discreet discussion. You move the discussion out of apublic venue and into a one-on-one situation, where you can work directly withyour antagonist without thousands of eyes dissecting your every move whilefailing to understand the whole story. After a successful resolution, politely ask the complainer to amend oreven withdraw the original ugly comment.

3. Avoid the social media fiasco formula

Can you spell F-I-A-S-C-O? The formula in social media issimple: Small Error +Slow Response Time = Colossal PR Disaster. Putdifferently, the magnitude of a company’s social media embarrassment isproportional to how delayed its online response was. An event in the onlineworld gathers social steam with such speed that your delay can become more of aproblem than the initial incident. Even an afternoon’s lag in responding can becatastrophic.

4. Prevent online complaints in the first place – throughaccessibility, not through force or legalese

Unhappy customers are unlikely to complain via public methodslike Tripadvisor, Yelp, or on their blogs if they know they can use email, thephone, or a feedback form to reach you directly — and if they feel sure thattheir problem will be addressed immediately. You can do a lot to ensure thatthe first impulse of such customers is to reach out to you directly, day ornight: Offer “chime-in” forms everywhere. Provide direct chat links for whenyour FAQ’s fail to assist. Provide an easy way to respond directly at thebottom of every corporate email you send out, instead of ending with thatobnoxious “please do not reply to this email” footer.

Overall, become widely known for your rapid and satisfyingresponsiveness, and such customers will come to you, offer to help you improve— and will keep their complaints and misgivings, for the most part, “in thefamily.”

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/micahsolomon/2015/03/11/apartment-fines-tenants-10000-for-yelp-reviews-4-better-ways-to-handle-social-media-complaints/

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