MarkLives’ digital agony uncle @DigitalGrandad1 is now taking questions on all issues digital. Tweet them to him or email DigitalGrandad@marklives.com.
Dear Digital Grandad
My company has built up a great reputation over 50 years, supported by great staff, products and services. But like any brand, we makes mistakes, but have one disgruntle customer who just doesn’t like us. I have tried to resolve her complaint even thou I don’t think it is our fault and feels like she has a vendetta. To make things worse, I have now just heard from a friend that there is a lady on twitter slating our brand? Please grandpa! What do I do, as I have been told she has a huge following… arghhh technology and online don’t you just hate it.
Regards
Mr Tweet-not
Dear Tweet-not
You may have been around for years just like me kiddo, but time has moved on. The new kids on the block love technology and digital like never before! They have now been armed with something a little more special than ‘word of mouth’.
Just as in our real life where a customer walks away from your company with an opinion they’re likely to share with friends and family, the increasing digitisation of South Africa now means that they’re also likely to share that opinion on their digital platform like Twitter, Facebook, blogs, forums and more.
‘Word of Mouth’ replaced with ‘Word by Click’
So unfortunately for you, where you thought this complaint was likely to be a one-on-one exchange, this customer now on social media is tarnishing your business’ name to a wider audience much faster than most people realise. The traditional term ‘Word of Mouth’ has now been replaced with ‘Word of Click’ and it goes like this… click, click, tweet, tweet, share, share and repeat ….and potentially heard by hundreds (not 100’s as cool), but 100’s of people in seconds – just like that! Damn that’s pretty powerful.
So my friend – I think you have just been the latest victim of having no Online Reputation Management (ORM) crisis. So you maybe an old brand, but your first step seriously is to think about the ORM damn quickly.
Did you know that my friend Nielsens recently found that “63% of consumers say they trust the recommendation of other consumers above (that of an) advertisement,” and, as all business owners can vouchsafe, not all negative reviews are deserved. Like in your case.
“You need to get armed with the latest weapon”
ORM, essentially, is about protecting your businesses reputation, which you’ve always done in the real world (right). All ORM does is shift this online. Simple hey. So if you had this in place you would have picked up her rants and been able to respond to it instantly. However, just as with traditional marketing, social media marketing needs a strategy. ORM must be taken as part-and-parcel of your strategy.
Simply put – the social media component of ORM is an online extension of traditional customer relationship management. So lets get you started and thinking about connecting with your ranter head on.
Digital Grandad Tips #
Grandad Tip #1 – firstly get yourself an ORM tool that helps you monitor what is being said about your band. There are hundreds of tools out there that will allow you to do this from free ones to paid ones, advanced ones to basic ones. Email me if you can’t find anything by using Google. Or if you are bigger enough, hire an ORM Social Media agency to set you up and/or manage it for you.
Grandad Tip #2 – However it is critically important that whoever runs your social media presences (in-house or externally), is fully aware of what to do when facing customer complaints or negative comments about your business (governance policy).
Grandads Tip #3 – But there are some basic steps when addressing a negative post:
- Don’t try hide offending news or deny something occurred if it did;
- Research whether there’s merit to the complaint. If not, show the facts you’ve uncovered and ask for a correction.
- If there is merit, try to take the discussion private or offline (i.e. email, telephone or private messages on social networks).
- Chronicle what you’re doing to fix the situation; transparency and honesty are always a positive in a negative situation.
- Should the negative post escalate into an online uproar fuelled by numerous posts from multiple people, be ready to write a post responding to the case.
- As with all social media marketing, listen and be honest.
ORM may seem to entirely deal with the negative, but there are positives. Just as complaints travel at the speed of a person’s internet connection, so do compliments and resolutions to complaints OR even cheeky ones likes I saw this week, where one brand was trying to resolve an issue and another brand hijacked the situation to welcome an unhappy customer. Nothing like healthy ORM…
Whatever other goals you may have in venturing into social media, one that must be primary — building long-lasting and effective relationships with your target market. Do that, and you will have fulfilled the most basic component of a good social media ORM strategy. But remember this space is 24/7 and ensure you have someone who is monitoring your brand continuously and tell Mrs Rant, you have got her number. I mean tweet and respond positively.
Happy Tweeting and Caring through clicks
Happy building and moving-in.
– DigitalGrandad is a Marketing Professional with over 140 dog years of practical digital experience working with both global and local brands. From SME’s through to Multinational’s and across industry sectors he has seen and embraced the changes technology has given to us to better our lives. Yes he remembers the old days, but is now a firm traDigitalist born through traditional marketing.
If you have a digital dilemma and are too afraid to ask your boss or your agency, but feel you need to ask for some straight no-nonsense advice, please email me at DigitalGrandad@marklives.com with your question, or better still tweet to @digitalgrandad1. I’ll answer one every week on MarkLives.com.