Negative reviews – Proof that responding works!

March 28, 2011 By 2 Comments

Back when I was Products Editor on motorcyclenews.com, I received a steady trickle of emails and phonecalls on the same theme. Each one was from a product manufacturer or retailer who had received a negative review or forum post and wanted to know what they could, and should, do about it.

Five+ years ago, the answer was mix of the insight and common sense that I possessed at the time. Unless the review or post was libellous (in which case the legal requirement was to remove it), the best thing that company could do would be to respond publicly with a polite and reasoned answer for what may have caused the problem, and if possible, potential solutions. That way they not only reached the complainant, but also the huge audience who would view everything without necessarily posting. It also ensured that the situation was likely to be defused straight away, rather than building up steam.

Photo courtesy Lars Plougmann on Flickr (CC Licence)

If only I’d had the 2011 ‘The Retail Consumer Report’ from Harris available at the time. (h/t Mediapost and Mack Collier). The survey of 1605 U.S online adults reveals:

  • 68% of consumers who posted a complaint or negative review on a social netowkring or reviews site got a response from the retailer, which led to 18% of them becoming loyal customers and buying more.
  • Receiving a response meant 33% went back and posted a positive review, and 34% deleted their original negative review.
  • And given that a big part of making sales and getting loyal customers is based around surprising them with things that make them happy – 61% of consumers would be shocked if a retailer responded to their nagtive comments on the social web.
  • Plus, nearly a third of consumers research on social networking and reviews sites when they’re shopping online.

I’ve finally got some empirical evidence to back up my conversations all those years ago! Funnily enough, the evolution of those conversations was a questions and answers section named Ask An Expert, which asked representatives from suitable companies to be available to respond to reader questions. I’d prefer you didn’t mention the amount of interest and funding sites like Quora have generated more recently!

But it’s actually an even more important approach to me now as a business owner, not only do I continue to advise clients to respond publicly to negative complaints in a polite, responsible, and most importantly, active way, but I also have a responsibility to monitor and respond to comments and reviews of the two businesses I’m running to make sure that we do the best by our clients and customers. And if after all that, you’d rather ignore my advice, Harris research and any negative reviews, then I guess pointing to the example of Craiglist and Craig Newmark won’t change your mind. I can only hope you’re not a client, and you happen to run a marketing or web design and development business!

Filed Under: Business, community, CRM, customer service, ecommerce Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Will customer service come to social media?

January 12, 2010 By 6 Comments

Despite the constant call for companies to engage in customer service via social media, it’s rare anyone points out that the people running the social platforms are generally a bit rubbish at servicing customers themselves…

John Batelle writes about the challenge Google faces with the Nexus One – in that it’s not a company geared for customer service. Something that’s not a surprise if you’re a user of Feedburner for example.

I’m fortunate enough to have been introduced to a couple of very wonderful people at both Facebook and Twitter, which means I can get a bit more help than most people. But not only has that been a relatively recent development, but those contacts are only for my work activity (And I’m afraid I won’t be sharing their details, as I suspect they’d be bombarded with emails and probably never speak to me again.)

For my personal accounts I use the same customer service routes as everyone else – and like everyone else, I face a load of impersonal FAQs, contact forms, and seemingly circular links to try and get an answer from anyone to solve my problems…

And yet at the same time, I’m joining everyone else in proclaiming how useful social networks are in solving customer service issues and engaging with people to get them responses.

The only reason that the networks escape a lot of criticism appears to be either down to the fact we’re still sympathetic to the plucky little startups they once were, we’re worried about getting deleted if we complain, or we’re all waiting for the market to evolve to the point where social network customer service is as important to us as changes to the news stream or the way we Retweet.

Until then, we’ll have to live with the fact we’re trying to become open and transparent on networks which do their best to avoid hearing from us…

Filed Under: customer service, social networks Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Don’t worry about me…

October 12, 2009 By 1 Comment

There’s no need to worry about me, if you’re a company I buy products or services from.

After all, I’m just one person – you’ll barely notice the difference if I stop buying things from you. At most, I might make the buying decision for a family of three, so you won’t lose that much cash – particularly if you’re a global corporation.

Don’t worry about the things that matter – reliable products, good service, etc – I’m easy to replace with a bit of advertising or marketing. And with the internet these things are so cheap to do. This new ‘social media’ stuff means you could replace me for free, even if you’ve always just though of the internet as something for geeks and nerds – you just concentrate on email and checking one or two business sites to keep an eye on your share price.

And whatever do you, don’t worry about the fact that I’m able to tell the world about why I stopped my consumer relationships with you, and what exactly caused me to go to your competitors – quickly, for free, and able to spread indefinitely via search, social media, even news websites. And the fact I can use text, audio, video, photography to support what I’m doing.

You just relax and close your eyes.

It will all be over soon…

 

 

(This post is dedicated to the lost sales we’ll never see again – which in the last week have varied from a couple of pounds to a potential five figure sum – all lost down to bad service or products…)

Filed Under: Business, Digital Culture Tagged With: , , , ,

Why Twitter won’t replace Google search- but will overtake it

February 16, 2009 By 4 Comments

The reason why Twitter and real-time information will overtake Google search isn’t because of the aggregation of the ‘Thought stream’ as Techcrunch has proposed, as Lew Moorman has written, or even as Robert Scoble has written.

For some reason, we still think that a new service will totally replace the old, and that the two compete on the same field, even though Robert’s post alluded to where I see the real advantage for real-time information.

Google provides signposts for where you want to go. Twitter provides you with a guided tour by your friends.

Signpost by JCM_Photos on Flickr

Signpost by JMC_Photos on Flickr (CC Licence)

It’s not about searching the aggregate of real-time information.

It’s about asking the members of your network in real-time for responses.

And it’s about increasingly moving towards Vendor Relationship Management, rather than Customer Relationship Management.

I don’t care as much about the general consensus of the population of Twitter about a subject as often as I care about the opinions of the core group of my 2300 followers on the specific question I’ve posed.

And that’s where the threat to Google occurs. As a normal Twitter user, I’ll occasionally look at what the general populace reports around breaking news or a major event. But it’s the closer network within my followers who provide the real value of responding in minutes, or even seconds, to my requests and questions.

It allows people (and one day, perhaps companies), to come to me with the information I need, rather than setting out on my own to try to navigate my way to what I need.

Real-time web allows me to ask for information and have it brought to me by my core group of contacts and relevant people/companies. That’s the real-time benefit – not in evolving search.

But this doesn’t mean that there is no need for search.

Guided Tours by friends don’t remove the need for signposts, for example when friends aren’t available.

I’m already finding that I use search far, far less than ever before.

Real time search is only really valuable when there is a need to guage public opinion for businesses, marketeers, journalists, writers etc. (the last two refer to print, web, blog, tv, radio, mobile).

So trust me to choose search, questioning friends, or real-time search when it’s appropriate for what I want to do, and don’t rip up all the singposts in case I don’t know anyone in a particular town!

Filed Under: Digital Culture, social networks Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,