{"id":4307,"date":"2012-08-25T18:40:50","date_gmt":"2012-08-25T18:40:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/?p=4307"},"modified":"2012-08-25T18:40:50","modified_gmt":"2012-08-25T18:40:50","slug":"when-relationships-go-south-dealing-with-negative-fallout-online","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/2012\/08\/when-relationships-go-south-dealing-with-negative-fallout-online\/","title":{"rendered":"When Relationships Go South: Dealing with Negative Fallout Online"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>After my post on\u00a0Relationship Killers<\/a>, I received a great comment from\u00a0Zach Rosenberg<\/a>, who brings up another relationship killer\u2014telling the customer they\u2019re full of beans. Here\u2019s what he had to say:<\/p>\n

One of the relationship killers I\u2019ve been seeing a lot is brands engaging incorrectly \u2013 namely, publicly telling a consumer that they\u2019re wrong, or have somehow used their product wrong. If you\u2019re addressing a customer in public \u2013 GREAT! But if you\u2019re addressing them in public and telling them that they\u2019re too dumb for your product somehow\u2026then you\u2019re letting them and everyone else within earshot know that you think your customers are idiots.<\/p>\n

For example, loosely-related to another father-blogger\u2019s recent experience \u2013 a customer frustratingly tweets something like \u201c@Company\u2019s online stock check sucks\u201d The worst thing a brand can do is reply with something like \u201cwell it\u2019s not really representative of the store\u2019s stock. Did you call???\u201d<\/p>\n

This sort of brand interaction is toxic. An employee is so rah-rah about how great their retail establishment is that they\u2019ve forgotten that customer experience is the reason why the technology exists\u2026<\/p>\n

Zach\u2019s absolutely right\u2014and this reaction isn\u2019t limited to online relationships. We\u2019ve all seen examples of terrible face-to-face customer service interaction, or have been victims of it. The trouble with having the same type of interaction with people online is that the audience \u201cwithin earshot\u201d is much bigger, and so is the potential fallout for your brand. But don\u2019t think \u201cin-store\u201d interactions aren\u2019t being shared online as well. Better train all employees who are consumer facing and make sure they understand how quickly how they behave can affect your brand.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>\u00a0<\/a><\/div>\n

NOT!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In my opinion, here are three ways brands can avoid this issue:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Carefully screen your online customer facing representatives:<\/strong>\u00a0If you\u2019re going to outsource your social customer service or assign it to someone in-house, make sure the assignee has the right personality for the job. They should be customer-friendly, naturally helpful and sympathetic. This is generally NOT the job for your IT or development staff or a part-time intern. Just because they set up your profile, doesn\u2019t mean they\u2019re good at dealing with people.\u00a0AND\u2026<\/strong>\u00a0train them properly and make sure they understand the ramifications of what they do.<\/li>\n
  2. Don\u2019t add customer service to an already overloaded individual:<\/strong>\u00a0Stress is one of the biggest contributors to reactionary responses. Don\u2019t be tempted to add customer service to someone\u2019s plate when they already have a full-time job. It\u2019s hard to keep your game face on when you\u2019re pulled in too many directions, and this type of interaction requires focus and calm.<\/li>\n
  3. Have a written plan in place for dealing with possible negative posts:<\/strong>\u00a0It helps to sit down and brainstorm all the possible complaints or objections people could have to your product or service before you run into them. Rather than being surprised when something comes up, and not knowing what to say or having a knee-jerk reaction, plan out your responses for given situations. Be honest with yourself here, and put yourself in your customer\u2019s shoes. Get with your legal department that is necessary in your industry for this exercise, but trust me\u2014having a written guide for how to formulate responses by type will help tremendously. But for heaven\u2019s sake, don\u2019t send a \u201cform letter type response\u201d in a social setting. Personalize every response!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    For instance, Zach went on to give me an example of a different way to respond to the negative post mentioned in his comment:<\/p>\n

    \u201cIt\u2019s more simple (and makes them look better) to say something like, \u2018We apologize; it\u2019s not a perfect system, but we\u2019re working on it! What item were you looking for?\u2019 Even if that employee on Twitter can\u2019t actually solve the problem, they\u2019ve not made the customer feel like they\u2019re the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Do you see how following these steps would have helped in this situation? Getting the right people in customer-facing situations and arming them with a plan for possible complaint types can help you turn potentially bad situations around\u2026 online and off.<\/p>\n

    Look at a negative response as an opportunity to assist someone, to build your brand reputation\u2026 and do your best to kindly resolve the situation and show consumer you care. Remember, you\u2019re on \u201cCandid Camera,\u201d when it comes to social activity. When others see that you responded positively and quickly to resolve an issue, they are more attracted to your brand. Everyone loves great customer service\u2014so be as transparent as possible when you interact with negative comments online.\u00a0A relationship restored will bring you many happy returns!<\/a><\/p>\n

    Originally posted at TedRubin.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    After my post on\u00a0Relationship Killers, I received a great comment from\u00a0Zach Rosenberg, who brings up another relationship killer\u2014telling the customer they\u2019re full of beans. Here\u2019s what he had to say: One of the relationship killers I\u2019ve been seeing a lot is brands engaging incorrectly \u2013 namely, publicly telling a consumer that they\u2019re wrong, or have … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1458,1184,985,1413,480,1691,3],"class_list":["post-4307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tedrubin","tag-tedrubin-2","tag-collective-bias","tag-customer-service","tag-featured","tag-return-on-relationship","tag-shopper-marketing","tag-ted-rubin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4307"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4310,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4307\/revisions\/4310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}