All of your customers are active on social media. Today, it’s much easier to interact and learn about your customers in the online world than in the offline. That’s why many companies are investing millions of dollars into their social media strategy to create their own communities on popular platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. After all, there are almost 2,5 billion users on social platforms which makes it an enormous market. As you start growing your community there, you will need to focus on how to efficiently engage your audience.
Each of these platforms has the option which allows customers to leave their reviews in some way, whether it’s in the reviews section, comments, private and public messages or on their own profiles. So, how should you react to negative reviews everyone can see? Is it possible to turn them around so they don’t harm your online reputation and, consequently, your business? To successfully handle reviews on social media, you should keep these things in mind.
You can get scathing reviews even if you do nothing wrong. So, you need to understand that you aren’t always going to get positive reviews even when you think things are going smoothly.
Compassion
No matter how negative the review of your business is, you should always show compassion. Showing your customers you understand their point of view is vital when trying to solve the issue. If your customers feel you are not even trying to understand them, it will only make things worse. On the other hand, when you show compassion, it means you will go out of your way to help a customer. When a customer sees your reply in which you say you’re really sorry and offer them a solution, they will definitely appreciate it. People leave negative reviews because they are unable to enjoy your product. Helping them by being kind and understanding leads to customer satisfaction.
Gratitude
Always say ‘Thank you’ to a customer who left a negative review and truly mean it. Negative reviews are your second chance to enhance your products and grow your business. More importantly, they are your chance to show how you handle situations that are not so perfect. Let’s be honest, all your marketing efforts are focused on showing how perfect your products and your business are, but that’s not what customers want to hear. They want to see how you react when an error occurs or a customer is uncertain how to utilize a product. There are so many other values you can demonstrate through the way you reply to a negative review and they all contribute to your brand reputation.
Solution transparency
Showing compassion and gratitude are necessary, but without the solution, they are just another marketing trick. When you read a negative review on your social media platform, don’t respond immediately. Instead, try to think of the most efficient and easiest solution to the problem addressed in the review. Make sure your customers and everyone who will read it can understand what you meant to say. Try to avoid words which can confuse a person and try to provide a solution in a few steps, so your customers can easily solve the problem on their own. That’s vital for businesses who work with software or web hosting solutions where their vocabulary sometimes needs to be simplified for the communication to be effective. If the problem is impossible to handle over the social media comments, write reasons for it and invite the customer to contact you directly via phone, email or inbox to solve it successfully.
Humour
You can answer to a negative review even by using humour, however, be careful with that one. If you use humour too early in the communication, it can irritate your customer even more. Try to save it for the moment when you’ve already solved the problem successfully. For instance, when a customer replies to your comment on his negative review, why not write something that will brighten his day? It doesn’t have to be a first-class joke and it should come naturally to you. With humour, the one thing you should never do is to force it. Also, if you notice your customers are using humour from the start, allow yourself to do the same while showing you will do anything to help them solve the issue.
Deleting
A lot of businesses think they should delete a negative review on social media before anyone else sees it. But, you will never know if somebody saw it before you deleted it and, more importantly, there is always one person who will know what you did – the customer. If your customer left you a negative review on any of your social media platforms, that means they will expect you to respond to them. No matter how bad you think this review is for your business, deleting it will only make it worse. Instead, try to think of the best way to respond and solve the situation. Of course, hurtful words should definitely be deleted as you don’t want your customers and prospects to be offended by something that’s posted on your social media account.
Offer A Solution
We’ve discussed the way that you have to react rapidly to remarks and elucidate what turned out badly. Be that as it may, the most significant point is to offer an answer for the issue. Understanding a decent beginning stage, however not really enough to indicate you give it a second thought. Advise your clients what you’re doing to determine the issue.
Conclusion
Managing social media platforms is a full-time job in most companies, and some of them even have entire teams of several professionals working on their image on these platforms. Whether you have a social media professional or not, It’s important to know how to react to negative reviews on social media because you can truly benefit from them in the end. You just have to know the right way!
