Using social media is an easy, cost-effective way to not only connect with your current clients but to also reach new possible leads. It may be a simple way to help your business, but it can also come with negative comments, complaints, and mad customers.
It’s critical to fabricate a concise and clear policy for what to do when you come across negativity on your social media so you can handle it before it becomes a problem for your organization.
For brands with a social media presence, negative comments are unavoidable. Whether it’s a person just trolling your company or a dissatisfied customer, your response can maintain or destroy your online reputation.
All it takes is one grievance to swiftly escalate into a bigger disaster if you don’t answer correctly or at all. To create lasting trust among customers and potential ones, it’s critical to know how to respond to negative comments on social media.
Why Social Media Comments Are Important
Here are some aspects that will help you understand the importance of social media comments for your organization.
Engagement Indicator
Social media comments offer a direct measure of viewers’ interest in your content and products/services. A high number of comments, mainly positive ones, signifies that the viewer is engrossed and interested in your brand messaging.
Reputation Management
Social media comments can notably affect your brand’s reputation. Positive reviews inspire credibility and trust. Negative reviews can stain your brand image. Professional and quick responses to negative comments are vital for effective reputation management.
Customer Feedback
Social media comments serve as a helpful source of customer feedback. By following and evaluating comments, you can get insights into customer perceptions of your services, products, and total brand experience. This information can help with service and product improvements, new product development, and specific marketing campaigns.
Credibility and Trust Builder
Responding to comments proves that you appreciate customer feedback and energetically engage with your audience. This promotes credibility and trust, leading to greater sales and customer loyalty.
Dealing with Social Media Negativity
Stay Positive
When creating your response, be sure the tone is appreciative and positive, not nasty and defensive. If you can, thank the individual for their feedback and tell your side of the story or the thought process behind the post. Attempting to make others see your side of things can help enhance communication and support your community.
Stay Calm
The first thing you need to do when you see a negative comment on your social media post is to stay calm and don’t react hastily. Take a deep breath and read the comment thoroughly without getting defensive or taking it personally.
Occasionally, negative comments are not really about you, your brand, or your products/services. It’s about the commenter’s own misgivings and frustrations. Try to see their side of things, empathizing with their feelings, even if you do not agree with them.
Respond Publicly
Even when the comment is negative, responding publicly helps fabricate trust, accountability, and transparency. If you want to discuss something privately with the customer (i.e. the customer’s account), you should still respond publicly, letting them know you’ve reached out via email or private message.
This lets your current and prospective customers realize that they can expect a response from you regardless of how they are contacting you.
The way you respond will make a perception about your brand. Did you admit mistakes, display empathy, and offer a solution? Putting your customer’s experience on display, even if you’re dealing with a complaint, can boost your customer relationship management and lead to potentially new customers.
Monitor Your Social Media Channels Often
Frequently monitoring your social media channels is vital to keeping a positive presence. This entails tracking mentions of your services, brand, and products on every major social media platform. You can automate this activity by using a social media monitoring tool such as Radarr.
Make sure you monitor all your social media channels, even the ones you don’t use often. Negative comments could appear on any platform, making it crucial to remain informed about what people are saying about your brand on any platform.
Respond in a Timely Manner
Fabricate a response time. When it comes to responding to comments, speed matters. Social media users typically expect brands to respond within at least four hours.
Keep in mind that common service-level agreements (SLAs) can differ from a few minutes to hours, based on an assortment of factors such as your industry and your staff.
They can also change based on campaigns, peak times, and certain events. With sensitive problems such as an emotionally filled complaint, a slow response could make a customer feel ignored, creating a feeling of more dissatisfaction.
Negative feelings can increase quickly. In some instances, when a brand’s response is too slow, the negative comment circulates on social accounts until it reaches media outlets. By responding to problems in a timely manner, your brand can exhibit its devotion to customer service and you can stop negative comments from going viral.
Acknowledge the Customer’s Frustration
When customers express dissatisfaction, quickly acknowledge their feelings and apologize for any trouble generated. This shows empathy and a readiness to deal with their concerns. Sincerely apologize and don’t make excuses.
Don’t Get Argumentative or Defensive
When people feel betrayed, they typically become angry and frustrated. This could lead to a negative spiral where the customer becomes more and more upset, and you become more and more defensive.
When dealing with negative comments, it’s natural to get defensive and start to explain, defend, or even argue with the person providing the feedback. However, fighting this urge is critical as it only exacerbates the situation and impedes resolution.
Know Your Audience
When responding to a mad customer, remember on which social media platform you are creating a response. For example, on Twitter, you have to keep it short to get their 240-character limit while still drafting an effective response.
Facebook has no character limit, but you should still steer clear of blocks of text to keep things brief. Facebook is thought to be a more considerate platform when it comes to customer complaints. You get more details to work with when creating your response.
Be Honest and Transparent
When responding to negative social media comments, being honest and transparent about the situation is critical. This entails:
- Acknowledging the issue
- Apologizing for any harm or inconvenience caused
- Detailing the steps to resolve the problem
After acknowledging the person’s dissatisfaction and making an apology, be sure to offer a resolution. This proves your dedication to rectifying the situation. It’s also vital to be understanding and respectful, even if you disagree with the person’s viewpoint.
Ask Customers To Contact you Privately
If negative comments appear, consider shifting the conversation to a private setting. This approach is usually preferable unless the problems can be quickly resolved on the public platform. Instead of sending a direct message, leave a public comment asking the person to contact you for a private conversation. This shows your commitment to handling any concerns without resorting to a public argument.
Your responses should address the individual personally by calling them by their name. Acknowledge the problem they are facing and assure them that you want to make things right if they have a bad experience. Personal messages help customers feel that they matter.
Avoid Deleting Negative Comments
Deleting negative comments might be the easiest solution, but it’s not the right tactic. It expresses your reluctance to listen to customer feedback and try to hide the truth.
Deleting negative social media comments suggests to your customers that their concerns and opinions are unimportant. Moreover, it makes an impression that you are trying to hide something.
Don’t delete negative comments. Address them. This proves your attentiveness to customer feedback and devotion to solving their problems.
Effective Strategies for Addressing Customer Issues
Be specific – Instead of generic declarations like “I’m here to help,” offer a definite action plan or resolution. For example, you can say: “I can refund your payment, send you a replacement product, and lead you through troubleshooting steps.”
Be proactive – If solving the problem will take some time, update the customer frequently. This exhibits your dedication and attentiveness to getting a resolution swiftly.
Be realistic – If a quick resolution is not doable, tell the customer and make a realistic timeframe for coming up with a solution.
Final Thoughts
Regardless of the industry or size, negative reviews are an unavoidable part of business. Even the most successful organizations deal with customer dissatisfaction. How you respond to social media comments can considerably affect customer loyalty and perception.
Empathetic and fast responses can alter dissatisfied customers into brand advocates. To guarantee quick responses, consider partnering with a social media management agency to follow your brand mentions across several platforms, including YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Do you need help with social media content management? Contact us today and let’s get started on making your social media marketing deliver significant results.
