OPEN Forum has good article on how to deal with negative feedback on social media channels (so, on the Internet). It’s a basic list of the types of criticism you’re likely to receive and the best way to respond. If you’ve worked in a customer service position before this is most likely nothing new, but it’s still worth pointing out.
· Straight Problems - Someone has an issue with your product or service and has laid out exactly what went wrong. This type of feedback is negative in the sense that it paints your business in a poor light, but it can be helpful in exposing real problems that need to be dealt with.
· Constructive Criticism - Even more helpful is when the comment comes with a suggestion attached. Many customers — including some of your most loyal — will use social media to suggest ways in which you can improve your product or service. While this type of feedback may point out your flaws, and is thus negative, it can be extremely helpful to receive.
· Merited Attack - While the attack itself may not be merited, the issue that catalyzed it does have merit in this type of negative feedback. Essentially, you or your company did something wrong, and someone is angry.
· Trolling/Spam - The difference between trolling and a merited attack are that trolls have no valid reason for being angry at you. Also in this category are spammers, who will use a negative comment about your product or service (whether true or not) to promote a competing service.
I would make two additional comments to this. If you are responding to a “merited attack” by telling the customer steps are being taken to correct the issue, make sure steps are actually being taken to correct the issue. Don’t just say it. Do it.
Also, just because a customer makes a feature suggestion doesn’t mean you should implement it. If you add every feature that is requested you’re going to end up with a bloated, convoluted, mess of a product. You can be thankful for the suggestion without having to implement it.
ReadWriteWeb posted an article covering why Facebook wants to be “your one true login”. The article appears as one of the top results when users search for “Facebook login” on Google. The comments on the article are riddled with confused users thinking that is the new Facebook login page.
What is happening? People are going to Google, searching for “Facebook login” and clicking on whatever the top result is, thinking it is going to take them to Facebook’s login page.
John Gruber comments:
It’s funny, yes, but it’s a fascinating glimpse at just how confused many people are about how web sites and browsers work. They don’t use bookmarks, they don’t type “facebook.com” in the location field. They just Google for whatever they’re looking for and assume the first result is correct.
This should serve as an important reminder that far too often brands do not put enough emphasis on the simplicity of the user experience of their website.
Brands work so hard to drive people to their site. They want to appear as the top search result for all sorts of different terms, but what happens after that? Now the customer is on the site. Can they figure it out? Can they find what they are looking for?
It does no good to do all that work to drive people to a site if once they get there they leave frustrated because they can’t find what they’re looking for.
If you’re a brand you should be spending quality time simplifying the user experience of your site. If customers don’t have to call or email for help, support costs are lower. Customer satisfaction is higher because instead of getting frustrated, they get stuff done.
Lower costs. Happier customers. What’s not to love?
“Other companies in our space aren’t on Facebook. Our customers probably wouldn’t engage us online. This competitor doesn’t have a YouTube channel.”
So what? You aren’t in business to do what your competition does. You’re in business to be better than your competition.
Stand out.
Find a way and a reason to engage your customers online and do it. Own a construction company? Offer self help videos for smaller projects that individuals can do around the house. When those people need to hire someone for a larger home improvement project you’ll already have their trust.
Own a photography company? Let people know how you make your photos pop. Don’t worry about losing business. They’ll be more likely to come to you when they want their professional photos done.
Not taking the time and effort to engage your customers online just because competitors or other companies “in your space” don’t, is a cop out. Offer something people want, and it doesn’t need to be free stuff. Sometimes people just want a little help, direction, or good laugh.
Asking “Do we really need to engage customers on social networks?” is the new “Do we really need a website?”
The answer is still yes.
(Just like always, these thoughts are mine alone and may or may not be shared by anyone else I work with)
As IT Specialist I was invited to relatively few meetings, which was great. I can’t stand meetings, especially ones that start late, run long, and have no agenda (so, most meetings). Unfortunately, in the days since my new title was made public I have been invited to nearly a dozen meetings and - I’m sorry to admit - created a few of my own.
This needs to stop. Meetings are toxic.
Below is an excerpt from a short essay from the 37Signals book Getting Real that hits the nail on the head:
There’s nothing more toxic to productivity than a meeting. Here’s a few reasons why:
- They break your work day into small, incoherent pieces that disrupt your natural workflow
- They’re usually about words and abstract concepts, not real things (like a piece of code or some interface design)
- They usually convey an abysmally small amount of information per minute
- They often contain at least one moron that inevitably gets his turn to waste everyone’s time with nonsense
- They drift off-subject easier than a Chicago cab in heavy snow
- They frequently have agendas so vague nobody is really sure what they are about
- They require thorough preparation that people rarely do anyway
Can you send an email instead of scheduling a meeting? Can you stop by someone’s office instead of scheduling a meeting? Can you do anything instead of scheduling a meeting. In most cases I bet you can.
Fewer meetings means higher productivity. Higher productivity means a better bottom line, and that’s something to get excited about.
If I decline your meeting request, don’t be offended. I just want to get some work done.
The creative team at Littlefield has their own Twitter account - creativefridge - where they post silly photos, retweet in an effort to win free iPhone apps, and engage in other tomfoolery.
If that’s not your thing, then the new littlefieldpov may be more your style. The “official” agency Twitter is more focused on the business side of things. Think strategy, insight, and branding.
Follow both. We promise not to spam you with 100s of messages every day.
Just a quick reminder that our weekly post rounding up the best links sent around the office now resides on Facebook. Go check it out.
Articles giving tips to small businesses on how to use social media are a dime a dozen. They all tell the same basic story. Engage your customers, don’t shout at them. Create engaging content, don’t be an RSS feed. Don’t talk too much, but don’t talk too little.
All of this requires one common element: someone who is actually in the game.
You engage people differently whether you’re on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Digg, or your uncle’s blog. Talking too much on Twitter is different than talking too much on Facebook. How do you know, though?
You sign up. You get in. You use the service.
Take a break for a bit. Stop reading articles on what you should and shouldn’t do and actually get in. Get your employees to sign up as individuals to use the service. Have them follow people they like, fan organizations they enjoy, upload photos of their last vacation. Just have them get in.
Reading up on what other businesses are doing is great. Reading another “Top 10 Ways To Have Your Business Succeed In The World Of Social Media” article is fine. But if all you do is sit on the sideline and hem and haw about how your business should enter the social media playing field you’re going to miss the game.
Jump in.
I can’t remember where I came across this, but I read the following recently in regards to blogs (paraphrased):
Steps for a successful small business social media policy:
1) Trust your employees to use common sense.
2) There is no step two.
Can it really be just that easy? For small businesses, say less than 100 people, could this method actually work?
37Signals uses this policy on their company blog, Signal vs. Noise and it seems to work quite well. Jason Fried, one of the founders, comments on their policy of posting to the company blog:
We don’t have an institutionalized approval process. If someone feels like a post may be of questionable content, they can run it past me first, but I don’t require people to run posts past me before they are posted. It’s up to each person to decide if something requires a second look before posting.
When you trust people to make a reasonable decision, they’ll usually make one. When you require everything someone writes to go through an approval process they’ll probably write less and be less interesting. We don’t want people to be afraid to write or afraid to think.
Too many rules and regulations can stifle creativity and discourage people to post. Now, this model probably can’t work for a large organization, or an organization that is heavily regulated by the government (like a bank), but couldn’t this work for most small businesses? What are some of the downfalls of a policy like this?
Our weekly Friday Links post has a new home. Go check it out (and if you aren’t a fan of ours on Facebook yet, now is a great time to become one).
When Bad Websites Happen to Good People - Ten tips to make your website more effective.
Ten trends Affecting PR Professionals in 2010 - “Content will be king – if it’s relevant, compelling, and searchable. In a sense, traditional journalists and PR professionals have been trading roles. As more journalists cross over into PR, we PR professionals are broadening our conventional job description to the point where we can be an online and offline content resource to complement – or even rival - ”old” media. The trick is to ratchet up our output to make fresh, relevant, compelling content a daily creative product.”
(What’s this? Surely you know by now. But for those who don’t… Each “Friday links” post contains a summary of the best links that are sent around the agency each week. Some weeks are better than others.)
