Managing your brand’s online presence: turning negatives into positives
I saw an article the other day that gives a great example of how a company took a negative review and turned it into positive publicity by exceeding expectations with their customer service.
Here’s the story
A customer wrote a negative two-star review on Amazon for a digital kitchen scale, complaining about the terrible battery life. The company saw this, responded quickly, and within a day notified him that they were sending a new scale and also replacement batteries for the older one.
Rather than replying with a generic comment saying “We are sorry you didn’t like it! We hope you’ll try us again!” (which is still better than no response at all) they went above and beyond, and responded directly to the individual to solve the problem.
The results
The customer was so pleased and surprised by their response that he changed his review. His revised review described their customer service in such a positive way that it won over new customers.
Over 2000 people marked that the review was helpful, pushing it to the top of thousands of others, and now it’s one of the very first reviews anyone sees when they visit the page.
It’s important to note that this was not a company employee responding to a direct inquiry or complaint to their customer service department. The company monitored their online presence, saw the bad review on a third-party website, and went out of their way to respond.
The importance of customer service
Great customer service is imperative. People trust other people more than seemingly distant corporations — a review detailing a good or bad experience will often sway their opinion much more than a marketer-produced advertisement could.
So never lose sight of the human aspect, and aim to delight your customers rather than doing the minimum.
A mean comment on a blog article or Facebook post may feel disappointing, but they are an opportunity to show that you care about your customers’ experience and want to correct any wrongs.
Where some businesses fall short
I saw another infographic recently called Drowning in Data that lists a few frightening statistics:
- Around 97% of tweets aren’t seen by businesses
- Only 44% of customer questions on Twitter are answered within 24 hours
- 95% of Facebook wall posts aren’t answered at all by brands.
That is a problem, folks. Social media is a valuable tool because it allows you to come into direct contact with customers and build valuable relationships. So be personal, and do your best to respond to people’s comments, questions and concerns.
And of course it’s always great to respond to positive comments too! When you reply back to a positive comment or review, it shows your customers you value and appreciate their business.
Helpful tools to manage your brand
It can be difficult to keep up with every review or comment posted online. There are many helpful tools you can use to monitor the buzz across the web, such as:
These Internet monitoring sites will send you an alert every time your brand name or desired search term is mentioned on the internet; whether on a review site, a blog, or somewhere else.
Need help staying on track?
Digett can help you create a strategy to develop and maintain social media profiles across a variety of platforms. Contact us today to help manage your online presence.
Related Articles
- Negative comments: What do you tell the troll under the bridge?
- Food, Photos, & Going the Extra Marketing Mile
- Back to Basics: Your Social Media Followers are People
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