Social media is an amazing platform on which to connect with your clients and showcase your product or service to countless potential clients.
Increasingly, this is the arena where couples first look when deciding on their style, themes, or locations for their wedding, so it is the ideal place to put your best foot forward to encourage couples to contact you with enquiries about their wedding day.
No matter whether you engage with one or two social media sites, or exist solely on them, it is important to brush up on how to deal with negative feedback on social media.
Even the most professional, experienced, and renowned businesses can fall victim to negative reviews or comments as it’s impossible to keep 100% of your clients happy 100% of the time.
But gone are the days where disgruntled clients would send you an email or pick up the phone to air their grievances.
Today, they will hit the keyboard and their opinions are there for all to see.
Don’t despair, there are a number of ways that you can handle negative feedback on social media in a positive way, which will have positive flow-on effects into the future.
Respond quickly
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to responding to negative feedback as each case will be very different. What is important is your response time. Potential clients who engage with your social media pages will pay attention to things like your response time. A negative comment that is left for days, or completely ignored, will give the impression that the business owner is quite happy to sweep problems under the carpet and give potential clients the feeling that they would not be valued. Also, unanswered comments can simply enrage already upset customers even more, leading to more heated posts and further reputation damage.
Separate abuse with legitimate complaints
It’s important to determine what is a legitimate complaint and what is anti social behaviour or abuse. All legitimate complaints need to be responded to in a professional manner, however abuse or anti social behaviour does not need to be tolerated. If someone is ‘trolling’ you or abusing you then it is perfectly reasonable to remove the post.
Take it offline
Although a client may have begun their dialogue with you online, usually the best way to solve a dispute is to take it offline as quickly as possible. Try and move the conversation to email or even better, give them a call. The client would most likely welcome your effort to contact them personally to work out a solution. It also prevents the social media conversation from getting out of hand wth the potential for others to chip in and potentially get abusive.
Have patience
Remember that chances are, this is the client’s first experience with the wedding industry and what may seem common sense and run-of-the-mill to you is completely foreign to them, so sometimes all it takes is a simple explanation of products or processes and the client will understand and move on.
Don’t remove negative posts
No one likes having blemishes on their social media record there for all to see, but it’s best to avoid removing negative posts unless they are abuse or trolling. Social media users know that no business will ever have 100% rave reviews, so when they come across those who do, that are immediately suspicious that they are not being presented with the whole story. This is where your sympathetic and genuine responses come in as they will boost your credibility and show that you are interested in customer satisfaction.
Let your online community help
If you have an active social media community, they can and will jump to your defense or help those with generic requests for information. It’s important for you to respond quickly, but If a client you have helped in the past sees someone else with the same issues, they might feel inclined to jump in and share the process they went through to reach a resolution.
Most importantly – don’t take it personally
For all of its positives, social media is a magnet for negative feedback and complaints, so it is important that you don’t carry each one on your shoulders. The best you can do is address each issue as it arises, remain professional and courteous and the rest will fall into place.
