On the Muppet Show there were two characters that were typically not happy about anything. Statler and Waldorf very rarely enjoyed any of the performances they viewed. They were quite vocal when they were disappointed – which was often.
What if Statler and Waldorf from the Muppets sat at the back of your business and said:
Waldorf: “They aren’t half bad.”
Statler: “Nope, they’re all bad!”
You could control it, right? You could ask them why they were displeased and attempt to resolve whatever it was that made them unhappy with your product or service. Could you do the same if they were posting those same comments to Twitter or Foursquare?
The difference between being critiqued by these Muppets and being critiqued on social media is that these Muppets generally kept their comments to themselves. Someone on social media is likely to share their displeasure with everyone.
When someone posts a negative experience about your business, product or service within a social network, it’s generally there to stay.
If you do not react in a public way to this negative criticism, it says one of two big things about your business:
- You are not paying attention to what people are saying about your business.
- You do not care what people are saying about your business.
Before social media existed, if someone wanted to complain about your business then he would pick up the phone and tell you, or he would tell a few friends and never use your business again. It was simple, and half the time you probably had no idea you were losing customers.
In this current day of social sharing, a business not only has to be mindful of what is being posted, but it needs to follow up in a public way. If there is a negative comment floating around and it appears that the complaint hasn’t been acknowledged, then people presume that the business does not care.
To give you an example of this situation, I recently encountered a similar experience. I was visiting my bank to make a deposit, and in order to keep my Mayorship, I decided to “check in” on Foursquare. Once I had completed the check in, I was shown a review from a friend about a local business nearby to my bank. The review about this company was not positive:
I have no idea of the actual situation, but a friend posted it. What this means to me is regardless of what really happened, I don’t ever plan on using this business. A friend said they were robbed, and there was no follow up from that company.
People will will trust the feedback and recommendations from their friends more than anyone else.
I think in this particular case, the only way this company would be able to get my business is if it went that extra mile to fix whatever the issue was that my friend encountered. If the company could turn my friend’s negative experience into a positive one, then it is likely that my friend would endorse their product and customer service. This would allow me to feel comfortable using this company’s service.
The challenge for this business is that it has no idea about this negative feedback because it is not monitoring the web and social networks for these types of comments. Today, it is critical to monitor how your brand is being viewed online and quickly respond to any negativity surrounding your business. Quite often, a business will not have the time or resources to monitor these types of social mentions, which is why we, at bWest Interactive, offer social media monitoring as one of our many services.
How do you monitor your business across the web and social platforms? Please share any tricks, tips or tools that you use to track how people perceive your business online.
