Tips for Neutralising Negative Social Media

Once of the hot topics in the closed member session from Fiji 39 (The 39th International Tyrepower Conference) was dealing with negative feedback on Social Media, with Facebook being the main media of discussion.

Facebook user policy states that any review left on your stores pages must be based on the reviewer’s own experience. – Not friends or family providing an unfounded opinion. These types of negative reviews can be reported to Facebook with a brief explanation that the reviewer is not the customer, or customer of the store. Facebook will remove the review and associated comments.
The reviewer, in this case, will receive notification from Facebook and a Bad Strike Warning.

Other things you can do are to ensure that you have a set of Terms and Conditions on your social pages.

In short, if someone violates the Terms and Conditions of your page, you are well within your rights to request the removal of the offending posts, blocking the user from your page.

So what if the above conditions are not met? What else could you do?
I’m sure there is not anyone who enjoys receiving negative feedback - especially if it is an unfair downpour of negativity from someone you barely know or never met?

According to research, the average dissatisfied customer will tell between 9-15 people about their experience, while around 13% of dissatisfied customers will complain to more than 20 people

At the same time, happy customers who get their issue resolved only tell about 4-6 people about their experience - that means that you need 2-3 times more positive reviews/feedback to neutralise negative feedback about your business.
Be proactive about getting feedback posted online about you. Ask your customers to give you praise on social media and blogs from the day you open your business.

Why not have a business card or similar that you could hand to customers who are brand influencers, get them to leave some positive feedback on your pages.

2. CONVERT HATERS INTO LOYAL FANS

According to Social Media Gurus Erik Qualman and Gary Vaynerchuck, it takes 12 positive service experiences to negate one negative incident. However, if you respond fast to an online complaint with the intention to resolve the issue, and add a personal touch, it might work miracles.
For example, if a customer's complained via social media, acknowledge that feedback and migrate the conversation to private messaging, email or completely offline.
Do what you can to resolve the issue, and follow up with a service credit or gift card along with a personal note.
So what is an example of something you could send in a message to a negative reviewer?

“We are sorry you had a bad experience. We have built our reputation on efficient and friendly service and ensuring your safety and value it highly. The experience you describe is not something that we aim for. Please send us an email to [email@address] or give us a call at [phone number] and we will gladly attended to this issue promptly. We would also very much welcome the opportunity to rectify the issue if you could provide us your contact details in a private message.

As response like this helps humanised you and your store and allows you the change to rectify the, customer’s complaint, and converted the haters into fans.

3. BE CREATIVE IN ADDRESSING POTENTIAL NEGATIVE ISSUES

When faced with a potential reputation-denting challenge, step back and think about what might be the most positive action to take - and think out of box as much as possible.
Being unexpected in your response can be very effective. Humour, for example, is often a good remedy as the American Social Media Brand Manager Brafton noted;

“Humour can also be one of the most effective ways to diffuse awkward or problematic situations. It pays to lighten sticky situations because social media posts are public, and more often than not, seen by third-party social observers. “

However, be careful using humour as it can cause a backlash for example, again from Brafton;

“London Luton Airport used a photo to joke about the weather and runway safety in a Facebook post last March.
The photo was from a 2005 crash in Chicago, in which a plane slid off the runway and a six year-old passenger died.
The post received a huge backlash of angry comments, and London Luton ultimately apologised for mocking the fatal tragedy.”

The final, and perhaps the biggest reason for you to use humour on social media is the ‘buzz’. Funny social interactions are often covered on other sites, and thereby reach an even bigger audience. Additionally, comical interactions receive a lot of Likes, Comments and Retweets.

“When life gives you lemons, make lemonade”.

If you treat negative feedback as an opportunity rather than a criticism, it shows your current and future customers as willing to own an issue and do everything to make it right.
The way you respond to negative feedback online can make or break your business.

Think about these three lessons and how to apply them to your online reputation building - and hopefully you can prepare yourself ahead of time.