Answering Negative Comments Online

Social media is a beautiful thing. It allows you to get closer to your customers and get instant feedback. This provides companies with lots of really good feedback, both good and bad. However, the question is….what do you do with the negative comments found on Twitter, Facebook, Yelp, etc.? This is a big question.

You basically have three options:

1. Do nothing. This is the easiest alternative. You can choose to ignore the comments. However, this is not a good idea. Ignoring the comments don’t make them go away, nor do they fix a potential problem. The complainer may cut off patronage and continue to say bad things about you.

2. Apologize. You can say you’re sorry for what happened. Thank them for their feedback and promise to prevent the problems from happening again. This resonates with customers. They like to know that you are listening and care about their customers. With this alternative, you could also provide some sort of reparations as well, e.g. refund, coupon, etc., but you don’t necessarily have to.

3. Refute. Finally, you can refute the negative comments. Maybe the customer did something wrong or had unrealistic expectations. In these cases, defend yourself. The mantra ‘the customer is always right’ is wrong. Customers shouldn’t necessarily be able to get whatever they want, whenever they want, especially when they are being unreasonable. In fact, some chronic complainers use online complaining as a form of blackmail, expecting you to apologize, give them their money back, etc. If you use this option, be sure to be tactful, thanking them for their feedback before refuting their claims. Other customers who see this course of action might be impressed that you didn’t simply lay down for unreasonable customers.

Being able to effectively respond to online complaining should be a crucial part of any company’s promotional strategy. Need help with this? Feel free to contact me.

Be Who You Are

Not everyone wants to buy your products. Let me repeat that. Not everyone wants to buy your products. It’s a hard thing to hear, but it’s true. Knowing who does and doesn’t want your products can allow you to focus on those most likely to buy from you.

Because you can’t be all things to all people, it is important to be who you are. That will serve you and your business well. Stay focused on what has made you successful and you will continue to be successful. By trying to branch out into other customer segments, you may marginalize your business. You may end up pulling resources away from those more valuable segments. This is a big no-no. Stay true to yourself.

For example, if you are a screen printing business who has become well known for a line of quirky, funny shirts, moving into other types of clothing or themes may water down that image that consumers have of you. And if that built up image has created significant value for your company, you don’t want to do anything to harm it. The results could be disastrous.

So, resist that urge. It will serve you well.

What are your Goals?

Does your organization have specific marketing goals? And are those goals evaluated regularly?

If your answer to either of those is ‘no,’ then you should consider revamping your marketing activities. By having specific goals, you create specific targets to work towards. This allows you to focus and have direction. Alternatively, if you don’t have goals, your marketing efforts are likely not going to be as effective as they could be.

Your goals should be clearly written, easy to evaluate, and measured regularly. For example, “increase month over month sales by 5% in each of the next six months.” This is a clear goal, it is easy to evaluate, and can be done so monthly. If you miss a goal, you can then reconfigure what you’re doing to improve your chances of meeting the goal at the next measurement period.

If you don’t have goals, or you do but don’t measure them, how can you know how well you are doing as an organization?

An added benefit of creating goals is that it forces you to step away and take stock of where you are and where you want to be. This allows for some consideration of changes in what you do to improve the performance of the company.

Final note: the creation, evaluation, and updating of goals should be treated like any other marketing activity you do. It is probably as important as your promotional activities.

Sales Patterns

Do you have a firm understanding of the ins and outs of your sales data? Are there different types of customers who purchase different types of products from you? In a previous career, I was involved in digging through our company’s sales data to develop a deeper understanding of what our customers bought. This was a B2B business, and we had detailed information on each customer, including their industry and location. We were able to develop profiles of different customer types and identify clusters of products that they commonly purchased. This allowed us to arm our salespeople with lists of products to focus on during sales calls. We also used this information to create promotions targeting various customer types. This helped our salespeople be more efficient, which was good for them as well as the company.

If you have the ability to link sales data to specific customers, you can also do this type of analysis to gain a better understanding of your customers and how to target them with products that they’re most likely to consider purchasing.

Hello World....

Maranello Consulting is a marketing consulting operation based in Dallas, TX. We have experience in many areas of marketing, including strategy, planning, social media, customer service, data analysis, market research, and marketing troubleshooting. Maranello can also develop and deliver custom corporate training workshops on all things marketing. If you have questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at maranelloconsulting@gmail.com.