No Matter how much you try, someone is going to say something negative about your business at some point on social media or in a review. When that time arrives there are basically 3 main choices you can make in reaction to the negativity. They are Flight, Fight and Flood. In this short article we will cover each method and its best use.
Flight – Ignore the situation.
The easiest solution is simply to ignore the negativity and move on. When we say ignore we mean ignore from responding and feeding into it but monitor it to make sure further action is not needed. It is best to do this when it is a single or small source and the post does not have much traction or the person is vulgar or disrespectful in a personal manner. You can silently access the situation and make fixes internally if they are needed and be done with it. If you ignore the person they will most likely move on. The lack of feeding into the negativity will allow their comments to fade away into the vastness of the internet. Make sure if you plan on ignoring something it does not gain any validity and stick around. You should stay on top of it and monitor it in case it becomes time to step in and respond.
Fight – Respond to the situation.
There are times where you want to respond (not really fight with the person) to poor reviews or bad comments in social media. DO NOT GET DEFENSIVE or heavy handed in your response! This is your chance to resolve a problem with a customer who had a valid issue. Show that you are accessible and willing to fix the problem this is not the place to argue with someone. If you can turn the negative into a resolution then it can be an even better situation than another positive review because you show you are willing to fix things that go wrong. If it looks like it is turning into an argument then your best bet would be to end the conversation on your end by thanking them for their business and regret that it did not work out. Remember there are people who have nothing better to do than hang out on the internet and attempt to rile people up. Don’t feed into it.
Flood – Tons of Positive will outweigh the negative.
Having a lot of good reviews and positive information out on the internet in social media will outweigh things if a little bit of negativity rears its ugly head. Having a system in place to keep positive reviews coming in and being an honest & transparent company can go a long way when someone steps into your world with storm clouds of negative variety. Being excellent at what you do and how you treat people can gain you trust and people may even come to your defense if they see false negative posts or reviews about you. The more positive things you publish and people share the less chance there is that the negative will gain any momentum and hurt how people perceive your company. Having no posts or reviews out there that show you in a good light make it very hard to have a good perception of your company when the bad comes in.
Conclusion
Negativity happens it is all in how you handle it that can make a huge difference in how you will look to perspective customers. Having a plan in place that includes reputation management and producing excellent content on an ongoing basis is a huge step in the right direction in battling negative people or reviews. Handle each instance that occurs on a case by case basis so you get the best results. If you see a trend of the same bad reviews don’t let your pride take over, fix the problem and watch the negative turn positive.