5 Tips to Handle Unhappy Clients and Complaints on Social Media
Mary Gutierrez | @MaryyAlyssa
When managing social media accounts for business, you’re bound to come across negative feedback from customers. In some cases, feedback can be helpful and beneficial to your business. On the other hand, it’s difficult to make everyone happy. There will always be people who complain, which is why knowing how to handle complaints and unhappy clients is vital. Here are a five tips to help you handle unhappy clients professionally.
Tip 1: Don’t Ignore Complaints
This may seem obvious, but some people are uncomfortable when handling negative feedback. These complaints won’t go away. They will still be there and it’s likely that the same person will keep complaining. It’s important to be sure that every negative comment is handled. If you don’t, other people looking at your social pages will think your customers are unhappy. Also, it shows that your business isn’t responsive to customer service issues, which will ultimately hinder your reputation.
Tip 2: Know What To Delete
Never delete complaints! This will surely make the problems worse. Like I said previously, complaints won’t go away. However, if a complainant is a “hater” or just harassing your business, then that’s the type of feedback you’d delete. In general, having comments with profanity on your social pages looks unprofessional. Leaving comments like this on your pages can damage the image of your business as a whole.
Tip 3: Respond to Complaints Quickly AND Efficiently
When a customer is upset, they expect a fast response completely solving their issues. You want to make sure when responding, you respond quickly. This shows the customer that you’re efficient and really care about their particular issue. Even though a fast response is important, you want to make sure your response doesn’t have mistakes. Make sure you don’t only focus on fast timing, and pay attention to the response you’re giving. Mistakes can be made easily when trying to be too quick.
Tip 4: Direct to a Customer Service Center
When handling your social media pages, you might come across situations that need to be handled offline. This type of situation would be more than your normal complaint. It could include issues with employees or customers who need to speak about business on a particular issue. In this case, your response will acknowledge their issue while providing a email, link or phone number to contact your customer service center.
Tip 5: It’s Not Personal!
Remember, don’t take it personally. The customers are complaining about the business, not you. Try to be as helpful as possible while keeping your cool. It might be frustrating at times, but you’re there to be the voice of the brand.
No matter what business you're in, complaints are going to happen. Just be sure to follow these five steps to turn complaints into positive experiences.