Social Media – How (Not) To Handle Complaints

For a business, a customer is much more likely to spread news of a bad experience than they will a good one.

Social media provides the opportunity to spread bad news far further and faster.

This can be, for example:

• On their own Facebook wall for their friends to see
• By sending out tweets for their followers to see
• By putting a comment on a location-based service such as Foursquare, for anyone else visiting that establishment
• By putting a comment on your business’s Facebook wall (if you have one and you allow comments), for other customers to see

What should you do?

The first challenge is to identify when your business is being maligned. Comments on your own wall should be obvious, and there are various tools available to search the other social media tools.

If the complaint appears to be true, then you can respond to it in accordance with your usual customer service principles. Whether you then publicise your response, such as by a reply to the posting, is up to you. If the complaint is snowballing by involving other people, your response needs special care.

If the customer looks like they are trying it on, then your response would vary accordingly.

But what if the complaint appears to be untrue? Has it been posted by a competitor or a genuine customer?

What about the Law?

The laws of libel and slander apply equally to social media as to any other form of communication. Should you go to law?

That is a tricky question. They say “any publicity is good publicity”. Suing a competitor is likely to provide both you and them with publicity. But what if it is a customer?

The recent case of System Graph suing a customer for EUR200k in Greece highlights the dilemma. Apparently the customer had a legitimate complaint, and after the initial experience couldn’t trust System Graph to put it right, which they had offered to do. He made a posting on Twitter about the company, which the company considers defamatory.

The PR professionals appear to be in agreement that legal action is not advisable. Would you want your company’s reputation to be one of suing customers, whether the action proves successful or not?

Social Media - Round-up of Tools for Business

Over the last few weeks we’ve looked at how a range of social media tools can be used profitably. Now’s a suitable time to summarise the key ones relevant to business:

Twitter can be used to promote any business, especially B2C (business to consumer) if you can make it fun. You can just send messages, or include pictures, videos and links to web pages. Can be used for other purposes such as technical support. Try to converse with people, rather than just broadcast. See the “Twitter Away” blog for tips

Blogging tools such as Blogger (Google) and WordPress provide a place to self-publish  articles on any topic relevant to your business. Comments from readers can produce a debate and engagement.

Facebook is where people play. Any business can take advantage, but again mainly B2C if you can make it fun. It is great to be interactive with followers/fans. The “Pages” function should be used for businesses, for example to distinguish your own posts from others.

FourSquare is one of several location-based systems, such as Gowalla, Facebook’s Places and MerchantCircle. Pubs, shops and other venues can provide linked incentives. Your business will usually be on there without you asking. You can welcome and encourage positive comments, but watch out for derogatory ones.

eCademy is more of a club for UK-based small businesses and solopreneurs. Useful if that is your market or you are looking for collaboration. Biznik is a US-based alternative

But LinkedIn has become the dominant place for professionals in industry and commerce. Other systems such as Plaxo and Fast Pitch trail behind.

MySpace provides specific functionality for musicians and other performance artists, such as gig lists, downloadable music and videos. Reverbnation is an alternative, or use both.

YouTube is great if video can play a part in your business. These can be embedded into websites and blogs, and linked from tweets on Twitter. Go for it!

There are many more, but that's enough to be getting on with!

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