Getting Positive About Negativity

Published on February 27, 2008  

In a post at his Web Strategy by Jeremiah blog, Jeremiah Owyang addresses a challenging scenario that often presents itself in social media these days: how to handle negative comments left by an unhappy customer on your site, forum or blog. The two-way nature of social media, according to Owyang, means you must face these basic realities:

• Negative comments are a fact of life. You can't please all your customers all the time; some will voice their complaints online.
• Deleting negative comments makes things worse. Think a customer is disgruntled now? Wait until they take the discussion elsewhere with the additional, and valid, accusation of censorship.

A negative comment can have a positive outcome by following this advice from Owyang:

• View negative comments as an alert system. By keeping close tabs on problems, you can manage them in real time. "Why wait for them to bubble up elsewhere on the Web?" he argues.
• Impress unhappy customers with your response. "In most cases," says Owyang, "these are individuals that want you to improve your product, so embrace them, acknowledge them, and get them involved in providing solutions." They could leave the experience singing your praises.
• Earn the trust of other customers. Having the confidence to encourage customer insight, whatever it is, tells observers you're committed to responsive customer service.

The Po!nt: "The savvy strategist will realize that by bringing the problems and issues closer to home, you'll actually have a few advantages," says Owyang. "By acknowledging and fixing these problems in public, you ... can turn this into a very positive experience."

Source: Web Strategy by Jeremiah. Click here for the post.

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