Turning Detractors Into Promoters
There’s nothing worse than the sinking feeling when someone with a large following blasts your brand. But it’s not a crisis, it’s an opportunity: to demonstrate that the brand is human, engaged, and helpful. Here are a few guideposts I’ve developed to turn the tide when your brand gets slammed:
Consider the source
Take some time to check out who this person is. How many followers or friends do they have? Do you see any re-shares or retweets? Do they have a blog? What is the tenor of the editorial and conversation there? Most importantly, if you are B2B, check the enterprise or CRM system and find out what you can about their history with the company. After this look around, you’ll know how you need to handle this person.
Engage quickly
Your goal is to keep the stream alive with conversation. Many times, reaching out publicly will diffuse the conflict quickly. Ask questions. Don’t jump ahead to a conclusion. Start simple with “What happened?” or “Is there something I can do to help?”
Doing this small question alone forces the detrator to think a little bit more about what their real problem is, and whether the brand really had anything to do with it. The funny thing is, a lot of people don’t give that slam a second thought when they publish it because they thought of your brand as a faceless monolith. Now that the brand is responsive and engaging, a large percentage of people will just go quiet (usually people with smaller follower numbers because they were venting). By engaging, you’re politely calling them out.
People with larger numbers of followers will most likely respond. They blasted the brand on purpose to see what would happen, get attention, or get themselves a better deal. Friend them and give them the opportunity to communicate through the channel they prefer — in the open stream or using private messaging features.
Stay in the ring
People love to share bad news. I call it the “Smell this bad milk” syndrome of social media. Find those people re-sharing the complaint, and message them in the stream as well. Let them know that you are doing what you can to help the situation. Again, people are most often happily surprised to hear from you.
And don’t be shy about asking them to re-share your response to them. They might not oblige, but if they found it worth the time to share the bad news, asking them to share any other news on your behalf to even the score is at least fair game. Most importantly, just be in touch with everyone who is in the whole conversation ecosystem on that subject. The more you participate, the more you are able to shift the agenda of the conversation to think of the brand in more human terms; regardless of the individual outcome.
Continue Reporting
So your sales or customer service department is now on the phone with your disgruntled social media detractor, and they’re finding out the problem had more to do with that person being obnoxious and falsely-entitled more than anything else. Continue to report on the situation — which you can do without getting specific. “We’re putting our best people on the phone to you,” is one way to let everyone know that you are doing what you can. Your instinct may say to let this drop as quickly as possible. In some cases, that may be true. But more often than not, you want to keep everyone up-to-date where you can. Continue to personify and update.
Loop back later
Even after the problem has been quelled, continue the service by asking the originator if there’s anything else you can do. By this point, really regardless of the outcome, your brand should have a number of people updating and commenting by singing your praises.
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