Dealing with negative comments on social media

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Social media gives every one of your customers a voice that can be heard across the internet, outside your control. While this can worry many companies, it is worth realising that not every comment that people make on Facebook or Twitter is going to be negative – and also that those that have suffered a bad experience can change their mind if they are treated properly.

US research found that 68% of those that posted a complaint or a negative comment on social media got a response from the retailer. Emphasising the importance of engaging with customers, 18% of those actually turned into loyal customers and bought even more. A third (33%) then posted a positive review and 34% actually deleted their original, negative comment or review.

This really demonstrates how addressing customer issues can help turn around a negative experience and create a brand advocate. The first thing you need to be doing on social media is actually engaging with customers, rather than running away from complaints or poor feedback.

So what is the best way to deal with negative feedback on social media? Here are some tips from our own experience and the blog of Aaron Lee:

1              Speed is of the essence
Customers expect a fast response, normally within an hour. This requires a comprehensive monitoring system that alerts the customer service team about comments mentioning your company or products quickly so that they can provide a fast answer and prevent the customer getting angrier.

2              Be human and be honest
Companies need to be consistent in how they respond to complaints – otherwise you risk creating inequalities between other channels such as phone or email. However agents need to respond sympathetically and honestly and apologise where necessary.

3              Don’t take it personally
When a customer complains, don’t take it personally. If they’re angry, getting angry yourself is only going to make things worse – and behaviour such as removing negative Facebook comments will enflame the situation and potentially damage your entire brand. Be polite, apologetic where necessary and use non-confrontational language.

4              Provide real answers
There is no point in responding in seconds if you don’t answer the question or issue that the customer has raised. If necessary acknowledge the complaint, show you are looking into it and then come back within a stated timeframe, rather than just issuing an empty apology. Link social media customer service to your central knowledgebase, so you can call on the widest possible range of answers to customer questions.

5              Integrate social media into customer service
Many companies still deal with social media comments separately to other customer service channels. This risks creating an expensive silo, with inconsistent answers being given to customers. Use workflow to ensure that social media is treated as one of multiple customer contact channels. You need to have the ability to share information and provide a joined up service that enables consumers to cross channels with all the details of their complaint immediately visible to the agent speaking to them.

Ignoring negative comments won’t make them go away. However deal with them well and you are essentially giving your company a second chance with a customer, enabling you to turn them into an enthusiastic brand advocate.

Who owns social media?

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Organisations across the world are now embracing social media, realising that it provides an immensely powerful, completely new customer channel. However social media has some big differences to many traditional channels – it is an open conversation that can spread news and comments incredibly quickly to a huge number of people around the world.

But who within an organisation is responsible for social media? Given the channel can be used for marketing, public relations, customer service and even sales the debate on which department should take the lead in this area is ongoing, and often heated.

In the early stages of social media it was often individuals within a company who responded to queries via social media. However while tales of CEOs sorting out customer service problems or airline pilots giving advice on where to sit on a flight for the best view are heartwarming, they obviously don’t scale cost-effectively when you are answering hundreds of tweets a day.

Marketing, and in particular PR teams, were also early adopters of social media, and while they understood the importance of communicating messages about their brand, they don’t have the training or resources to deal with customer service queries, which are best handled by agents within the contact centre.

Clearly companies need a blended approach that brings together all relevant stakeholders to best manage social media. In a way it is similar to the advent of websites – companies quickly realised that everyone needed to contribute rather than adopting a silo-based approach to the new channel. To ensure this collaboration works smoothly in the real-time world of social media the right technology is vital, in four key areas:

• Monitoring, to see what is being said about your brand on social media
• Meaning-based software to analyse comments for content and context
• Powerful workflow that can then forward the query to the best person to deal with it, whether that is customer service, marketing, sales or product management
• Analytics and reporting to ensure service levels are being met and that comments are being taken on board

In the era of social media customers don’t care who answers their query, they just want a fast, accurate response, so it is up to companies to put in place the structure to do this successfully if they want to thrive.

Customer service and protecting online customer data

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Online privacy is a topic that is constantly in the news at the moment, with iPhone app makers Path and Hipster the latest companies offering apologies after it emerged that they uploaded address book information from phones to their servers without asking permission. Other brands, including Amazon-owned retailer Zappos and Sony have had to issue apologies after their sites have been hacked and customer details compromised.

Clearly this is a complex area and one where issues can hurt relationships with customers and cause a great deal of damage to an organisation’s reputation. And with the European Union planning more stringent laws that would force companies to tell customers of security breaches within 24 hours and threatening large fines, it also has the potential to become extremely expensive.

So what can companies do to manage such crises and, as much as possible, reduce their impact on customer satisfaction? Here are four key areas to focus on:

1          Communicate quickly
Customers want to know what is going on, and so fast communication is vital if personal data has been misused or hacked. Even if you have to issue an interim statement that is then updated it is important to act quickly to prevent rumours spiralling out of control. Customers are no longer willing to wait hours for a response, but want to access answers within minutes if you are to retain their trust.

2          Communicate consistently
If their online privacy is compromised, ensure that all your customers receive the same information, whatever channel they are using to communicate. Have a central knowledgebase of information that is rolled out to the web, contact centre agents and social media to make sure there are clear, consistent answers for customers across all channels.

3          Use technology to automate response
One of the major impacts of a crisis is a huge increase in questions from customers as they email or call your contact centre to find out what is going on. If this overloads your contact centre and causes delays in getting through, customer anger will only increase. Use technologies such as Web Self-service to allow them to ask their questions on the web and social media, avoiding an overload on your contact centre but still providing the information that customers need

4          Monitor social media
Most organisations now have a strategy for monitoring social media for discussions mentioning their company. Make sure this planning includes crisis management and that there is a clear structure involving both customer service and communication staff so that queries are answered quickly and information is provided proactively to prevent rumours spreading. HSBC’s slick response to a major IT outage that shut down cash machines is a great example of how best to cope with a crisis using social media.

Crises do happen, often triggered by events outside the customer service department’s control. However it is vital that customer service teams are well prepared and ready to spring into action to provide the fast, consistent information customers want – otherwise you risk losing customers and long term damage to your brand.

Microsoft moves into virtual customer service

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There have already been a lot of predictions that 2012 will be a key year for customer service, with Forrester amongst those that see it as a major strategic priority for businesses.

News this week from Microsoft seems to back up this trend. It is partnering with a Silicon Valley company called 24/7, which specialises in using data analytics to predict what customers want. Microsoft is both investing in 24/7 and merging some of its assets into the company. The result of this should be a cloud-based software platform that allows customers to contact a company through whatever channel they choose, using speech or touch, with the software predicting what information they might need and automatically providing it. So, service is faster, more efficient and more responsive, leading to happier customers and higher retention rates.

From the outside this can look a little like science fiction, with mind reading computers providing us with answers before we’ve even thought of the question, but it isn’t as far fetched as it sounds.

Much of the technology needed is already in operation. For example, Eptica’s software is built on a self-learning, meaning-based search engine. Essentially rather than simply picking out specific words it analyses questions it is asked by looking at them in context. So it can tell the difference between cricket the insect and cricket the game by analysing the words around them. This means it is able to provide more tailored, accurate answers to customer service queries, whether asked by email, the web, social media or agents in the contact centre.

Eptica’s self-learning capability is another advanced innovation that helps customer service. As answers are selected to specific questions it automatically learns which is the best response and offers this the next time a similar query comes up. New content can be added quickly and simply slots into the system ready to be used in response to questions.

On the topic of prediction, many companies have invested heavily in analysing the customer journey, enabling them to offer a straightforward route through the buying process. This means they can offer help, such as through agent chat, at key points in the journey to ensure customers have all the information they need.

So while it is good news for the industry that Microsoft sees customer service as a growth opportunity, the even better news for consumers is that advanced meaning-based technology is already in use in organisations across the globe.