On Social, Not All Negatives Are Bad
That will require businesses to be vigilant for all mentions of their company, people, products, and brands. A service like Google Alerts is a good start, but there are dozens of other, more advanced social listening solutions on the market that can monitor social conversations in real time and even analyze the sentiment behind the words. These solutions include Salesforce.com’s Radian6, Conversocial, Sprinklr, SproutSocial, Brandwatch, Netbase, and Geofeedia.
“Brands need to listen to everything. They can then sort out what they need to respond to,” Johns says.
A COMMUNITY RESPONSE
Another option, experts suggest, is to let the online social community come to the defense of the brand. If active community members wholeheartedly love your products, they won’t let negative comments about them stand, especially when the poster is a troll.
“Where a company has strong customer loyalty, brand advocates will help out, and it’s a wonderful contribution,” DiMauro says.
But experts also caution that a supportive response of any kind from customers can’t be assumed.
“In most cases, the company should be ready and able to address the situation on its own, even on weekends, and any support from advocates and community leaders should be considered a bonus,” DiMauro says.
When such contributions do occur, it is important for the company to acknowledge them. “A thank-you tweet or a company hat can go a long way in maintaining and growing customer advocacy,” she adds.
THE GIFT OF GAB
Giving gifts to brand defenders is a great way to counteract negativity, but the company should also consider any and all feedback—no matter how negative—as a gift from concerned customers.
“Negative posts contain a treasure trove of information that can be used for brand improvement,” Jacobs says.
As examples, he notes that negative posts about a particular location or from a particular demographic group could be used to identify very specific problems that need to be addressed.
“If a brand analyzes the negative posts and discovers that they center on a specific locale, there is now a precise problem that can be tackled,” Jacobs says. “Are a lot of the complaints from young women? There may be some messaging that needs adjusting or some product refinements that will make the product more appealing to and useful for that demographic.”
DiMauro, though, says it’s even simpler than that. “In most cases, social complainers mean well and have a burning issue that they need you to know about,” she says. “A company doesn’t need to resolve every complaint, and often cannot, but it should appreciate that someone cared enough to take the time to share a problem.”
And if one person has a problem, chances are good that others have had the same problem too, though they might not be as vocal about it.
“In some cases, even if the topic is uncomfortable for the organization, the social complainer may represent a commonly held sentiment that really should be addressed,” DiMauro says.
Responding to those kinds of situations, Cleveland adds, “is just good business sense.”
And then it’s important for the company to concede that there’s a problem, take responsibility for it, and let the customer know what steps are being taken to correct it. In doing so, word choice is important. Telling the customer “We’re sorry you feel this way” puts the blame on the customer; saying something like “We’re sorry this happened” or “We’re sorry we didn’t meet your expectations” takes responsibility. And a humble company is more likely to be forgiven.
“Social media history has proven that honesty rarely hurts,” DiMauro argues.
TAKE THE TIME
A quick response doesn’t hurt either, even if it’s just to let the customer know that the company is working on the issue. According to the Social Habit research, 32 percent of people who have ever attempted to contact companies through social media for customer support expect a response within 30 minutes, and 42 percent expect one within an hour.
A study by Lithium Technologies found that 53 percent of customers who ask a company a question on Twitter expect a response within one hour, and that percentage rises to 72 percent if it’s a complaint. Fourteen percent expect an immediate response; an equal percentage of users are prepared to wait a day or longer for a response.
And customers don’t care that social media staffing patterns might change at night or on weekends. In fact, 57 percent expect the same response time during those off hours as during normal business hours.
Yet few companies are prepared to handle social media inquiries within the hour. According to a recent Brandwatch retail study, only 11.2 percent of retailers respond to social media questions within an hour. The majority (65 percent) respond within 24 hours.
Johns, therefore, points out that on social media, response time might not be as important as issue resolution. It’s more important to resolve an issue fully than to half-heartedly resolve it quickly, he argues.
DiMauro recommends that companies develop very clear service-level agreements around response times and share them both internally and externally. “This transparency goes a long way when managing expectations,” she says.
It also helps if the company maintains a consistent presence on social channels.
“You have to be in the game,” Cleveland states. “Customers have to see that you are out there on a consistent basis. You can’t jump on social just to put out fires.”
And this applies as much to social media as it does to any other channel, he adds.
“You need today to have a presence on all four channels: traditional [like phone and email], social, mobile, and Web self-service,” Cleveland says. “If you are on all four, you probably have the horsepower to deal with the negatives.”
Senior News Editor Leonard Klie can be reached at lklie@infotoday.com.