Customer Service Archives - Page 4 of 4

Sooner or later, your brand will receive a negative comment or bad review. Some posts will come from actual customers, others from competitors hoping to poach your customers.

Still others will come from trolls: people who have never bought from you, will never buy from you, and seemingly have nothing better to do than make your brand manager’s life difficult.

Regardless of who made the post, your reaction is likely to be the same: a deep longing for the post to disappear. But it won’t.

Here are your options for addressing damaging comments online, from least feasible (a lawsuit) to least palatable (taking the high road).

When can you sue?
People and brands alike must suffer a certain number of “slings and arrows.” Just because someone thinks your service is slow or your fries are soggy doesn’t give rise to a legal cause of action.

Once the comments move from obnoxious to defamatory, however, suing might become an option. Laws vary from state to state, but in most jurisdictions, defamation requires a false statement of fact (as opposed to an opinion), publication (communication of the false statement to at least one other person), negligence (if the defamatory matter is of public concern), and damage to the brand’s reputation.

Think “this finance company steals money from client accounts” as opposed to “this finance company sucks.”

You could issue a cease and desist letter to the person who posted the comments, but be aware that many such letters wind up featured on the person’s blog, or on third-party sites like Techdirt.

Ultimately, if the false statements really are damaging to your brand, you might have to bring suit, but you’ll want to carefully consider the implications before you do.

In the United States, the plaintiff must prove that the statements were false (as opposed to the burden being on the defendant to prove that they were true). In some jurisdictions, companies must meet the same standards as a public figure or celebrity in order to recover damages, and show that the person making the statement did so with “actual malice,” knowing it was false or exhibiting a “reckless disregard” for the truth.

In addition to the costs inherent in litigation, you could easily find your company cast as the bully in a David vs. Goliath type conflict, as we saw in the case of a Missouri bar owner who received a cease and desist letter from Starbucks.

Instead of suing, what should you do?
Respond. More than 1/3 of people who mention a brand on a social network expect a reply in 30 minutes or less (like a pizza delivery)!

As quickly as possible, post a reply to the comment on the same site where it was made. If the comments are in a Facebook post, reply on Facebook. If it was a Yelp review, reply on Yelp.

If the comments are on someone’s blog, contact the publisher directly, or post a comment on that site, but keep a screen shot in case they delete it.

Bear in mind that some people who post negative comments about your brand have a legitimate grievance. You will provide a better response if you write your reply with his in mind.

Brands do have some options when it comes to addressing defamatory statements. If the comments are posted to a third-party site like Yelp, you can contact the site to request that they be removed.

Be prepared to explain precisely how the comments posted violate the site’s terms of service. To report a defamatory review on Yelp, for instance, you’d select “Questionable Content” or “Legal Inquiries” from the drop-down menu provided and report the objectionable post as violating Yelp’s terms of service, section 6(a)(I) on content guidelines.

Be sure to give specifics about what the commenter said, and emphasize that it is both false and damaging.

Google has a form users can complete to request that information be removed. Facebook and Twitter provide options for reporting abusive posts, pages, accounts, etc. If the damaging review is posted on a blog, you can request the hosting company to remove a defamatory post.

In most instances, the costs of bringing a lawsuit will outweigh the benefit, and might even bring more attention to the negative comments about your brand. When defending your brand against online comments, consult with an attorney in your jurisdiction.

Ultimately, the best protection against negative comments is a healthy dose of goodwill. Invest time now—before a crisis hits—cultivating a closer relationship with fans of your brand, so they can be your first line of defense if the trolls attack.

Connect with your fans now, before you need them to rally to your brand’s defense: you’ll be glad you did!

Pic via Flickr user DonkeyHotey

While many companies are struggling to use social media as a channel to drive sales, some companies have discovered the power of using social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook to provide effective and efficient customer service. For example, look at this recent exchange on Twitter between Ekaterina Walter and Nikon:

While the end result might be a customer service ‘win’ for Nikon, it also raises some glaring issues for the brand. For example, if there’s consistently a disconnect between the level of customer service that Nikon offers via phone and Twitter, what happens when customers try the phone and don’t know to contact Nikon on Twitter? In that case, Nikon likely doesn’t have a chance to redeem itself as they did here with Ekaterina.

Another byproduct of this is that by providing better customer service via one channel, you are training your customers to go to that channel first for customer service. Which can be a plus assuming you have the bandwidth to support additional customers. But if not, that likely means that the level of customer service provided by one channel (Twitter in this case) may fall lower and more in line with what customers are seeing via other channels (such as the phone).

So what’s the answer? Try comparing notes.

Think about all the channels customers can use to contact you with support issues. Email, social media, website, phone, even snail mail, maybe even in-person. It’s important to remember that different customers prefer to use different tools. So it’s entirely possible that each customer service channel you use is seeing complaints and questions from a completely different segment of your customer base.

For each customer service channel you use, you should have your employees that man these channels regularly provide every area of your customer service team with the following information:

1 – What is the nature of customer contact?

2 – Are customers inquiring about a particular product or service?

3 – Did the customer mention attempting to contact your company via another channel first? If so, which one?

4 – Who was the customer? Share any information you can about who they were, their age, location, how they used you product or service, etc.

If you can better communicate and integrate your customer service experience then the total quality of customer service you provide will increase. That means more satisfied customers, and it increases the likelihood of creating more fans of your brand. Most brands don’t understand this, but one of the easiest ways to create new fans is to give a frustrated customer excellent customer service. That will often convert an upset customer into an advocate for your brand.

Share your successes, and your failures

No matter how many touchpoints your company offers customers to contact you with a service issue, the employees manning the frontlines should be in constant contact. If your support team on Twitter, for example, is having success providing customer service, you want to share with other areas of CS what’s working. Reverse-engineer why the CS experience on Twitter is better for customers so you can share what’s working with the rest of your organization. That way your team that handles the call center may be able to apply some of the lessons learned from the Twitter support team to improve the experience callers see with customer support.

It’s equally important to share your failures. Let other members of your customer support team diagnosis your efforts and give you insight into how to improve, based on what’s worked for them. A fresh set of eyes are often necessary to spot shortcomings that can be corrected. Another good idea is to have a private message board or forum just for your customer support team so they can bounce ideas off each other and share thoughts.

The bottom line is that just as communication with your customers facilitates understanding, the same process works internally. The more communication between all areas of your customer service department, the greater the chance to improve the experience for your customers.

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