Any form of Social Media used by businesses, irrespective of their characteristics will have some sort of response and feedbacks from its users. While most feedbacks that appear on web platforms are positive, we do have negative ones too. So, how do we handle such negative customer responses on our social media presence online? Well, there is no specific way or answer to the above question. All you have to do is to follow certain of practices while dealing with such responses.
Remember, Social Media even though not too formally declared, are still a part of a businesses’ customer service function. It’s a medium where the customers can open up any viewpoints regarding a product or service. This is the crucial point where the customer might take up the opportunity to back lash, as he or she can make use of the benefits of their virtual presence and can put forward any critical comments that can even bring down your sales! Hence you need to handle carefully such situations. First of all you have to keep in mind that a feedback or response can be true as well, whereas on the other hand it can be purposefully posted to harm the company or business. The identification of either of these two lies within the hand of the business owner. If the latter is found to be true, then it’s always recommended to delete such illegitimate comments and provide the other web visitors with a reasonable statement for the same. If the former is found to be the reason for such posts, various moves can be adopted as follows –
- If the response is a complete truth, then acknowledge the same, apologize formally and try to figure out a solution offline with the complaints.
- If the response is partially true, acknowledge it and provide the users with proper information. Further clarifications can be done offline.
Remember, a feedback provided by a web visitor can’t always be controlled, screened or monitored by the administrator and there can be many other visitors who might have gone through the contents before the administrator himself. Deleting such feeds and posts straight away will throw a bad image of yours in the minds of many other users. A ‘smart’ action is recommended, where the business gets its image doubled when it is ready for apologizing on its falls and to discuss it openly with its clients, rather than opening up a battle against its own customers and well wishers!
