Dealing with negative comments online is a common issue for nearly every business that is online. As with all interactions with customers online, there are good ways to handle them and bad ways to handle them. This list will show you 10 ways to deal with negative online reviews, starting with the best and working our way down to the worst.
1. Address the concern and take it offline
When something comes up on social media, you must address it whenever possible so that others know your business is serious. You always have to think of social media as a real life conversation. If someone walked into your store and complained would you ignore them in front of all your other customers? I hope not!
Once you have addressed it, or even as part of how you address it, prepare to take the conversation either offline or to private messages. Offer them an email, a contact form, or a phone number and get the discussion off of publicly available communication methods.
@ClipperChip Your accusation of our ranking being based on money is baseless. Contact us if you'd like to discuss: http://t.co/NTuZvI3xRR
— Best VPN Provider (@bestvpns) November 1, 2014
2. Try to start a positive discussion
This exists solely by thanking the commenter, asking them for more information about their complaint, and then burying them beneath a positive discussion. This is something you’ll use more often for those who seem bored, rather than those who have actual complaints.
For example, a commenter could say “This page sux. Why does anyone come here.” You then swoop in with a “Thank you for your comment.” Then you bury them with a long list of all the reasons that people come to your website, use your service, or buy your product. That’s what we call a #burn in online jargon.
3. Provide the disgruntled commenter with more information
Most of the time, your unhappy customers are just not educated well enough about a certain product or service. Giving them more information that specifically addresses their problem can turn a negative comment into a thank you pretty quickly.
4. Fight for what you know is the truth
Remember back in the days when the customers was always right? Ya, those days are not today. Some of those ‘customers’ may not be customers at all. They could be bots programmed to attack your reviews, they could be poorly paid people in another country cut and pasting comments, they could just be bored competitors sitting in an office looking to ‘help’ the company.
With this in mind, when someone is spreading blatant lies about your company you can stand up to these cyberbullies and fight them. Shame them. Show them for the lying liars that they are. In times like this it can actually rally your fanbase to defend you too!
5. Get a good lawyer
When someone leaves a truly vile comment, that is an outright lie and is damaging your reputation, feel free to let them know that you’ve lawyered up and will sue them unless they delete the comment or alter the review.
You will want to talk to the lawyer about this BEFORE saying anything. You’ll want to be sure that there’s a clear case of some sort of libel or abuse before proceeding. Threatening a lawsuit is a big deal, the last thing you want to do is end up like 2Clix software. Who? Exactly, they’re out of business because of a poor decision to file a lawsuit when they shouldn’t have!
6. Contact the webmaster
This is when you have received a poor online review from some sort of review website. This leads to you needing to do one of the above, but directing it to the person who runs the website. The best way is to start out by addressing the concern, and asking for more information.
Looking at one of the examples from above, maybe the owner of the sites listed at the bottom of the reviews should contact the webmaster, let them know about how well they actually perform, and push some of the positive work they do. It may give the webmaster pause to reconsider their review.
7. Ignore trollish social media behavior
Being able to distinguish between someone who has a legitimate complaint, and someone who is just trying to get a rise out of you, is a key skill to develop online. Here’s an angry customer with a valid complaint on Twitter:
Someone please remind me never to use @1800flowers again! Your company sucks. At least I'll get my money back in 35 business days #SorryMoms
— Steve Ott (@otterN9NE) May 11, 2014
Yes, he used some mean words, but that was someone who likely had a valid complaint. This is trolling:
@Microsoft I hate your company and your products so damn much I could just puke
— James Biedrzycki (@BiedrzyckiJames) October 30, 2014
Microsoft did the right thing here and ignored the trollish comment because there was nothing to it. With different phrasing and some sort of indication as to a specific problem he had, maybe this could have been worth their time. As it stands, do not feed this troll.
When something like the Dell Hell community fires up, it’s time to dive in and tackle this head on. The Dell Hell scenario is always the danger of ignoring someone, even when they seem to be a troll.
8. Beg for forgiveness
Unless you, or one of your employees, really have done something wrong, this is generally a rookie social media marketers mistake. Remember above where I was saying how the customer isn’t always right? This relates to that.
You don’t want to have a knee-jerk “Oh no, someone is upset and I have to make them happy” reaction. Often, this won’t even help fix the problem. It will just put you in a weaker position, and this can prompt even more people to pile on top.
If you’ve really, really screwed up in a BP oil spill epic way, feel free to try and beg people for forgiveness, and provide examples of how you’re worthy of it. Otherwise, try pretty much any other tactic above!
9. Admit it, own it, wear your criticism with pride
This will usually only work when your brand has a high level of recognition as to who it really is. But you can take social media gaffs and turn them into real positives. Take the “Chevy Guy” incident as an example of how to handle customer criticism in this way.
Twitter went crazy when a spokesperson for Chevrolet flubbed his lines during a trophy presentation on TV. The hashtag #technologyandstuff started trending on Twitter as people made fun of him and Chevy. What did Chevy do? They put the hashtag #technologyandstuff on the front page of their website!
Everyone had fun with this, but you need to use this tactic with caution.
10. Remove the comment
Wouldn’t it be great if you could delete something from the Internet and it would be gone forever? The Fappening would have never happened, for one. But as we well know all it takes is someone with the ability to push Command+Shift+3 to take a screenshot, and this can make things worse!
This tactic should only be used when someone violates your own already establish rules. Swearing and threats are easy to get rid of with a delete, but be sure to follow up by posting a message directed to the commenter stating what they did wrong. Give them a new way to contact you, email or phone, so that you can address their concerns further. Either way, don’t ever try to delete it as if the comment was never there.
One last thought is that someone will come along and plead “Freedom of Speech.” This may be the most noble of ideas we as a species have created. But freedom of speech doesn’t mean you get to say whatever you want on my page. It means you can say whatever you want on your page.
Suggested read on this topic:
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