7 Ways to Handle Negative Feedback on Social Media
Social media has become a vital ingredient of online businesses. Websites viz. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linkedin, etc., play very important role in our day to day life and are the fastest means of communication. Social Media allows instant communication between various business organizations, associations, companies or any other body with their customers or clients.
Social Media not only updates about current scenario but also enable us to understand market drifts and trends. Social Media has also proved one of the fastest means of advertisement. It can enhance traffic on your website, boost followers and thus can generate a lot of sales for the business.
Managing Social Media is not an easy task indeed. Social media may also lead you to witness repercussions, online fraud, and encroachment on privacy. Sometimes it becomes very difficult to deal with repercussions or unwanted feedback we receive on social media.
But it is very important, whether for an individual or business association or any other body to deal with such unwanted and negative feedbacks with diligence and intelligence. Some of the most crucial ways by which negative feedbacks could be managed include the following:
- Take negative feedbacks positively
- Execute a plan
- Timely Response
- Accept your mistake
- Do not reply unrelated or irrelevant feedbacks
- Apology
- Do not mock
Take negative feedbacks positively
The negative feedbacks should be approached with a positive intent. Taking the negative feedbacks in your stride is the first step towards ensuring positive social media response. It is very important to avoid any kind of provocation and you should act with responsibility and accountability while addressing negative feedback. An aggressive response may damage your image, so it is important to have a positive attitude and consider it as part and parcel of business.
Execute a Plan
Do not reply in hassle. After going through a negative feedback, it is very important to make a plan and decide on how to initiate it. A strategy prepared in advance in regards to negative feedbacks allows you to check the effectiveness of your feedback with customers especially in the case of big business organizations. Even for the smaller organizations which face tremendous competition from the rivals, executing the social media plan is very important.
Timely Response
It is one of the best practices to give response promptly. If you require time to investigate in detail, then also a small comment like, “Thanks for your response. We will get back to you soon” should be mentioned. Feedback providers expect timely replies, otherwise, they feel being ignored and discontented. A timely response shows your intention to rectify any problems. If possible, provide the respondents with a specific timeline around which the issue would be resolved.
Accept your mistake
This is one of the best ways to handle negative feedback. If you or your brand has committed a mistake, then curtailing it or justifying it is not the right strategy. Do not hesitate or afraid in accepting the mistakes. If you put yourself in customer’s shoes, then it becomes easy to understand his frustration and reasons for negative feedbacks. Acknowledging your mistake and taking ownership prevents the customers from blaming for the mistake and they continue with the brand.
Do not reply unrelated or irrelevant feedbacks
It is a generally accepted fact: ‘Do not feed the trolls’. It is not necessary that every feedback is to be addressed. It may happen that feedback is just to annoy or to bother you. Many people roam the web and look for reasons of attention on social media. Assess very carefully, whether the feedback actually relates to you or to your business. If yes, then only it has to be answered otherwise it is irrelevant to respond such feedbacks on the social platform.
Apologize, if needed
Every business is different and so as the reaction of its customer. With courtesy and genuineness, you can resolve negative feedbacks. It shows your transparency.
Do not mock the respondents
It is very important that negative feedbacks should be handled maturely. Mocking of customer or feedback provider is not the right approach. It may affect genuine customer and such incidences further have a negative impact on the customers at large. Such incidences go viral very quickly and easily and it further affects branding of the business.
ProcessVenue adds value to your business by partnering your organization in dealing with the social media issues. Our team of experts helps in updating the content and managing the feedback on various social networking websites.
Are there any points which we missed out on? Tell us about them in the comments and don’t forget to share the article on social media.