Social media is used as something not only to connect and keep up with friends and family but also as a way for people to voice their frustrations to brands. Unfortunately, not every comment you get on your brand’s social media page will be positive but it is important to know the right way to respond. Use these tips to remain professional with cranky social media users.
Make sure there are no other incidents to address for the individual. Before you respond to someone’s complaint, you should take a look to see if this is their only complaint. When you address the issue, be sure to address any other issues they may have all at one time. This will show them that you care and are looking to make things better.
Show empathy towards them and the situation. You cannot change what happened to the customer but you do have the opportunity to change their attitude about it, and the attitude of those who may read the complaint. Make sure that you respond with a sincere apology and do what you can to make it right for them, even if you did nothing wrong.
Provide your response publicly and on the same platform, preferably as a response. The worst thing you can do on social media is fail to respond to someone’s complaints. Think of it as a way to respond to all of your social media followers because, in a sense, you are. Brands that do not respond come away with a worse reputation as a result.
Don’t respond more than twice. The conversation may get heated from the customer and you may want to defend your company at all costs. However, you should only limit your responses to two times in the public forum. You can have more than two points of contact with them but not on the public forum.
Consider taking the conversation to a different channel. If you do need to have more of a conversation with the customer and you have hit your two reply limit, consider giving them a call directly or emailing them privately to work the situation out. This may even have a more positive response overall for a difficult customer.
Even though it may get difficult at times, it is important to not let anyone get under your skin with their comments. If you have discovered a trend in complaints, it may be worth your time to take a look at the issue to see if there is something that can be fixed. However, not every complaint that comes in will be something you can fix. Take that with a grain of salt and make sure you remain professional at all times.
