4 Ways to Handle Negative Posts Online

A friend of mine recently called me freaking out about a negative post her company received on Yelp. My advice? "Don't Panic." A negative review is not the end of the world, but it is something that needs to be immediately addressed. Better yet, have a plan for this type of scenario already in place and you won't need to go through the "freak out" stage if it does happen to you - you'll simply spring into action. 

You could have the best customer service in the world as well as a superior product, and there will always be that one person who finds something to complain about… And they will do it (gasp!) online. Having a social media policy creates guidelines for how to respond when a customer posts something negative about your company or product. There are four basic ways to handle a negative post or comment:

1.       Answer the post – it shows your concern for customer issues and your willingness to make improvements where possible.

2.       Ask the person posting to contact you – this hopefully takes the conversation offline, but it still shows that you are responsive as a company. This can also be combined with #1.

3.       Delete the post, if possible – if the post was made on your Facebook page, for example, you could simply delete it; however, this could cause the user to leave additional angry posts, exacerbating the issue.

4.       Ignore the post – this is not recommended unless there are extenuating circumstances.

Responding to issues online and in the public view can help to alleviate the present issue, and can also work to prevent additional negativity on the Internet, which can quickly become a reputation management problem. A pro-active approach to combating negative posts is having great content that shows up in organic search results. This doesn’t happen overnight, though, so in the meantime, make sure you’re addressing customer issues as they come up – either in the real or virtual world. Paying attention to what your customers are saying is a good way to find out where you need to make system improvements and increase overall customer satisfaction.

Does your company have a social media or PR policy in place? How do you handle negative posts about your company online?

Foursquare Shifts Focus to Localized Search & Recommendations

Have you visited the Foursquare website recently? As part of Foursquare’s effort to monetize their service, they have unveiled a new prominently featured search box on the homepage. You may notice its striking resemblance to the classic Google search box, which may very well not be a coincidence. A former Googler is on the team that has been working on improving the Foursquare algorithm and the overall search experience and as a result, they have unveiled this release.

This new search box functionality is for logged out users. Now Foursquare.com will provide lots more value to the logged out user than ever before. They have collected intelligence over the past 2 years, spanning from check-in data, lists, likes, dislikes, tips etc., which have all been factored into the search results. And for the app users, all of the standard rich features are still available – no changes to your experience whatsoever.

Does Yelp have some competition to be concerned about? As Foursquare moves further into the local search and recommendations realm, it sounds like they will be taking on Yelp head-on.

Do you see this direction working for Foursquare? Or, do you think they will always be seen as an augmented reality check-in service?

Like this post? Connect with Erika Barbosa on Google+.

The Facts About Yelp for Small Businesses

Yelp tends to be the primary go-to site for people wanting reviews on businesses. Whether your business is on Yelp as a form of online reputation management or simply because that’s where your customers/potential customers hang out, it’s important to understand the facts about Yelp.

So, it’s time to get the facts straight:

1. Most of its traffic is from its homepage
2. Restaurants aren’t the biggest category
3. Encouraging customers to post reviews is a bad idea
4. Those “People Love Us on Yelp” stickers? You’ve gotta earn them
5. Yelp provides free signage via Flickr
6. Yelp has paid for reviews in the past
7. Customer service appears to have a strong effect on reviews
8. Every star in a review leads to a 5-9% jump in revenues
9. Yelp tends to favor independent businesses over chains
10. Business owners can dispute reviews on Yelp
11. Legal threats for bad reviews can trigger “The Streisand Effect”

To read more details, check out this post on Mashable.

There are two points on this list that I found surprising. One being that restaurants aren’t the biggest category but that shopping is. The second point that I found surprising was that encouraging reviews is considered a bad idea. Yelp actually discourages against this practice. Rather than consumers potentially feeling as though they are being used in a promotional means, Yelps prefers the reviews happen organically and not because of any form of coercion.

What Yelp fact were you not aware of?

Like this post? Connect with Erika Barbosa on Google+.

5 Tips for Reputation Management

Whether or not you’ll admit it, chances are you’ve Googled yourself in the past year or two. Maybe you did it out of vanity, or maybe you were just curious to see what’s being said on the web about you. No matter the reason, it’s a good idea to know how your personal brand shows up online to others – especially for active job seekers. By the same token, it’s just as important, if not more, to know where your corporate brand ranks online. This is called reputation management.

Sure, there was a similar service offered back in the golden olden days (actually not so long ago) where public relations firms would provide clippings from publications that ran stories, features and advertising about your brand. In the digital age, getting started with reputation management can be done simply by entering your company name or variations into your favorite search engine and seeing what comes up.  

Reputation Management can help you identify issues you may not have known about otherwise, such as complaints on customer review sites like Yelp.com and forum discussions on consumer watchdog sites. While you can’t necessarily remove these types of negative posts, you can address the issues that sparked them, and take proactive steps to push down the negative results and ensure that you control the first two pages of Google.

      Here are five tips for online reputation management:

1. Determine what keywords resonate with consumers and focus on those terms.
2. Decide if you are going to address the negative reviews and how to respond.
3. Create great web content, such as active social media networks, informative websites and popular blogs.
4. Take steps to improve the problems that sparked the negativity in the first place and ask customers to leave a review when they’ve had a positive experience.
5. Measure the results against a baseline and work toward a goal.   

Don’t let this short list fool you – reputation management can be challenging, especially when someone high up in your company also has a reputation management issue, which can happen all too often. The key is to be proactive and monitor the search engines regularly. If you do have a problem with reputation management, you may even want to consider hiring a professional or agency to help you with a strategy and execution. Consorte Marketing recently put together this infographic on reputation management that includes additional tips.  

Consorte Marketing Infographic on Reputation Management

Has your company experienced backlash from negative reviews online? How did you deal with it?

Facing Customer Service Issues in Public

Does your company use social media as an opportunity to handle customer complaints, or does it try to sweep negative comments under the rug? Like it or not, Twitter, Facebook and other social media outlets have become a place for people to publicly air their grievances. Those companies that embrace public customer service are going to be much better off in the long run than those that resist or try to ignore these powerful communication vehicles.

In the past, customers might criticize a product or tell about a negative experience to a handful friends. Now, the whole world can know at once when something has gone wrong. (Think Alec Baldwin tweeting about his own bad behavior on an airplane – and badmouthing the airline).  There are plenty of examples of companies falling prey to one customer airing their dissatisfaction to thousands of Twitter followers or Facebook friends, but there are also great case studies about the right way to handle these oh-so-public customer complaints.

Dell was one of the first companies to use Twitter as a customer service channel, and it really improved their reputation. They have a Twitter profile @DellCares that is dedicated to customer service as evidenced by the bio: Dell's Social Media Outreach Team. 24x7 Global Support. We are here to listen, help and provide proactive info to our Customers.

Facebook recently launched private messages for Pages. Although not a completely public channel, administrators have to be ready to handle these messages, or it could turn into an ugly public conversation. Review sites like Yelp are ripe with both positive and negative customer experiences, so it’s important for companies to be aware of what their customers are saying about them online. Having a strong reputation management strategy can combat some of the negativity that is bound to plague a company at one time or another. However, providing great customer service up front goes a long way towards preventing some of that negativity.

The bottom line: public customer service is not something your company can decide it wants to do – it’s going to be out there no matter what. Embracing social media as a legitimate forum for customer service and putting systems in place to handle customer service in public is your best bet.

How does your company handle complaints that are made via social media? We’d love to hear your stories in the comments section.

Have You Received Phone Calls From YELP!?

There is website set up announcing two class action lawsuits against Yelp Inc. The company operates a website that enables people to post comments and review on businesses. The suit alleges that San Francisco based, Yelp, is an extortion scheme and that when a company is listed on their site for a negative comment, employees offer “advertising contracts” to remove the listing. This started after a veterinary hospital asked if Yelp would remove a false claim, and the company “demanded” $300 a month. The case, which is styled Cats and Dogs Animal Hospital Inc. v. Yelp Inc., was filed on February 23, 2010, and is pending in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

Customer Reviews & Its Effectiveness

I'm the type of person who does a lot of research on a certain product, restaurant, book or movie before I buy, and I believe that consumer reviews are the most valuable information, next to the actual product. Reviews allow new customers to ease into becoming more comfortable with the potential product or service they are considering investing in.

There are many websites that allow you to add a review about your business, and it's best to let your customers know about these sites so they can return the favor by writing up an honest review. For local businesses, I am a big fan of Yelp.com, which has become popular with local restaurants, but you can basically review any type of business under the blue sky.

A great way for customers to leave testimonials for your business is to direct them straight to the review website, whether it is a link in a thank you email, confirmation page, or in a prominent area on your website.

Other popular websites to view and write consumer reviews are:
Merchant Circle
CitySearch
Google Maps - easiest if you already have a Google Account
InsiderPages
Judy's Book
Kaboodle

Of course, it's best to take any review written with a grain of salt, since anyone can create reviews.