You Don’t Own Your Social Media Pages- Your Customers Do!

One of the most difficult aspects of social media management is reputation management. Social media has opened up a new outlet for customers to interact with brands. They no longer look at the brand’s ad in a magazine and call the brand’s customer service hotline when they have had issues with service or the product. Now customers are able to interact directly and have an actual conversation with the brand through social media pages. While this is a very positive thing and gives brands many more ways to market to consumers, it also gives consumers the ability to share their thoughts about a brand in a way in which others are able to see and interact with. As a social media manager for a multi-billion dollar brand, I see both negative and positive comments that our customers have left on our social media pages on a daily basis. While some of these are positive, the majority of comments are posted because either a product malfunctioned or someone has had issues with customer service thorough the traditional customer service outlets.
The tricky part about reputation management and post moderation is determining how and if you want to respond to these comments. Not all customer posts require a response. From my experience, I’ve noticed that some customers just want to vent about there experience and don’t really expect a comment back. In some instances, you choose not to respond directly on the post, but try to pull the customer into a private phone conversation with the customer service team. In this week’s post, I will be examining two separate social media posts (one from a customer to a hotel and one from a viewer to a mainstream news network) to determine what, in my opinion, the appropriate response. One thing that I’ve learned is that no matter what your response is, some people just cannot be pleased nor satisfied. But as social media managers, we have to do our best!

Post #1: To a hotel: “I am disgusted about the state of your restaurant on 1467 Justin Kings Way. Empty tables weren’t cleared and full of remains of meals. It makes me wonder what the state of your kitchen is?!!! Gross.”

Let’s first analyze the post to see if we can determine what the customer is really looking to get across. By posting this to the hotel’s Facebook page, the customer is wanting to bring attention to the issue. He wasn’t complaining about the food or the service that he directly received, but was mentioning the overall state of the restaurant, which makes the issue seem more relevant to the hotel’s Facebook page audience. I mean, who wants to eat in a restaurant that had half-eaten food sitting all over the place and is “gross”? In my college days I was a waitress, so I completely understand that things happen. Perhaps the hotel received an unexpected business rush on a day they were understaffed to handle the situation and the buss boy was now serving tables and helping the waitresses and bartender instead of cleaning the tables. It’s kinda rare, but I’ve seen it happen. I feel that the hotel should respond in an honest manner and invite the guest back to try out the restaurant again. Perhaps they can even brag about their high food service rating score (assuming that to be the case).

Proposed Response: Hi John. Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback regarding our restaurant on Justin Kings Way. We want to assure you the the atmosphere you described experiencing at our restaurant is not to our standards nor does it exemplify the atmosphere that we aim to create for our customers. Due to miscalculations on our part, we were very understaffed during your visit. It was unfortunate that our restaurant, which has a health code score of 98%, was perceived as less than stellar. We would love the opportunity to change your perception of the restaurant. Please send us your email address in a private message and we will send you coupons to use on your next visit. We sincerely hope to see you again!

Post #2: To a mainstream news network: “Your reporting on the Middle East is biased in the extreme. You gave almost all your air time to spokespeople for the Israelis last night and there was no right to reply for the Palestinians. The conflict upsets me so much and your reporting of it, saddens me even more and makes me f**king furious.” (Let us assume the reporting was balanced, with equal time to both sides.)

The first thing that I notice about post #2 is that it involved political viewpoints on hot topics that tend to polarize people. The viewer is clearly upset and angry about about the newscast that he just witnessed. Honestly, he probably wrote this post immediately following the newscast and didn’t give himself time to think clearly about the situation prior to posting. We are assuming that the newscast was actually very balanced and reported on each side equally. My first instinct is to reply with a link to the newscast in question and discuss that each side of the issue received 10 minutes of discussion. However, in the case of this post, I feel that the best thing to do is to not respond. Because this individual is upset, I wouldn’t want the conversation to be elevated and turn into an online debate between him and the brand. Since the post stated his opinion, I feel it’s best to leave it at that and not validate it by replying. In this type of situation, I’ve seen where other views respond to the post instead. This seems to work out pretty well as far as generating engagement for your Facebook page. Not all comments require responses. It’s up to the social media team to understand their brand and audience and determine the best way to moderate comments, keep their customers happy and positively promote their brand.

Do you agree with the response that I proposed for Post #1? If you were the customer who made that post, would you feel inclined to accept the coupon offer and try the restaurant again? If your experience was very different, would you feel like you wanted to remove the negative comment that you previously posted on the hotel’s Facebook page?