Ah, the sting of a negative review. We’ve all experienced them, and we’ve all struggled to turn them into positive learning experiences. Unfortunately, by the time brands discover that a not-so-great review of their product has been left on a social site, it’s already started to make the rounds and factor into other social users’ purchasing decisions. But you can’t prevent customers from venting their frustration on social media…can you? Software Advice‘s customer service analyst, Victoria Rossi, thinks you can.
Rossi recently surveyed businesses to discover what tactics brands could employ to intercept and solve problems before their turn into negative reviews house online. Here’s what she found.
Allow customers to vent on premises.
Whether it consists of always having a manager onsite, a comment card box, or another method of feedback, ensuring that customers have the ability to vent their frustrations the moment they run into problems will increase your brand’s chances of smoothing over the situation. The sooner you can remedy the situation, the less likely the customer will be to run to Yelp and complain.
Make it easy for customers to complain.
Obviously, you don’t want to encourage customers to verbally rip your brand apart, but the easier you make it for them to do so (in controlled circumstances), the sooner you’ll find a resolution. Making sure that your phone number, contact form and customer service email address are all visible and easy to find will all help ensure that it gets resolved by your team before it becomes visible to the entire Internet.
Allow for anonymous complaints.
Anonymity allows for honest, accurate feedback. It increases the odds of receiving feedback and gives individuals the ability to weigh in without feeling like it could haunt them in some way. Give customers that safe space and they’ll use it.
Respond in real time.
As soon as a complaint comes in, whether it’s online or via a phone call, make sure it’s dealt with immediately. If you have a social team who has to then refer the complaint to the customer service team, that’s fine. But make sure that the social team has the ability, and authority, to comment on the complaint, acknowledge it, and tell the customer that it is being directed to the team to be resolved. If the complaint comes in over a hotline, make sure that your phone teams are quick to respond. The longer the customer has to wait for resolution, the more time they have to stew and grow more and more frustrated.
Learn more by checking out Rossi’s findings in the SlideShare deck below.
How brands are encouraging customer to leave reviews? We spoke with business owners to find out.
