How to Deal with Negative Posts or Comments on your Facebook Business Page
Online negative ratings, comments and reviews are inevitable in any line of business. Disgruntled customers have always been more prone to share their experience rather than customers who had a good to great experience.
As such, business reputation can die by the hand of a dissatisfied customer on social media. Currently, review systems can be easily gamed with non-customers being able to leave feedback or ratings. This sometimes leads to businesses with poor service having a positive overall rating and businesses with good service getting spammed with negative reviews by a single unhappy client. Facebook is one platform that people will often use to share their opinions. As the platform has a wide reach in audience, it is diligent to monitor comments, ratings and reviews on the social network.
Responding to Negative Posts
When dealing with negative comments, it’s usually best to leave negative comments on your page and respond appropriately. This is a signal to customers that you are serious about their concerns and are willing to address any incidents.
There are different types of negative feedback you might find in your line of work:
Widespread criticism — If you are receiving a lot of complaints on similar issues, then it’s probably a widespread problem that should be addressed. This kind of posts wouldn’t need an individual response to each complaint, since many would receive a similar response. A good strategy would be to post a video or comment from management with an explanation or solution. Make it clear that you are open to feedback and are willing to make amendments. Your customers will notice and appreciate that you value their concerns.
Individual solution seekers — Undoubtedly, it is difficult to reply to every single issue from customers, but it’s important that you do. In the beginning it can be especially difficult as you encounter different types of complaints. By actively working on these and through monitoring, you will be able to make a spreadsheet with responses for general inquiries and other repeated complaints.
In these instances try to move the conversation offline or to another platform that isn’t public, like a customer service page or via e-mail.
Trolls — Comments that typically include inappropriate content, profanity, rants in all caps or a consistently unfounded criticism towards your business have the purpose of irritating you more than anything. When there is an obvious attempt at trolling, it’s appropriate to delete or block the comments, however try first to address the user publicly.
Promoters — In the case of advertisers and promoters that link to anything unrelated to your company or products should be marked as spam and deleted.
Negative comments and feedback may come from your customers from time to time. This is not necessarily bad, as it pinpoints to weaker points that your business might be able to improve. At the same time every business should monitor its reputation, especially online where review systems can be abused.
