It finally happened. Someone has put a negative comment online about you or your company. If the comment is justified admit it. There is nothing wrong with making a mistake. Admitting it makes you stronger. Trying to cover it up or gloss it over is a big mistake.
Do not ignore this sort of thing. Take these comments on and respond to them. Keep in mind that you are writing for the reader who is only aware of the complaint. Do not write for the complainer. Write to the uninformed third party. That's important because those are the people you want to be informed by your side of this situation.
Certainly consider the complainer, but you must consider your employees, investors, and everyone who sells your products. They people need the ammunition you will provide to deal with the negative comment(s) that will be coming their way. Provide them with the facts necessary to deal with your competition's comments, and those of their customers.
Now, you can see why these comments cannot be ignored. As the man said, "There's a lot of hair on that dog." He was right.
What to do
Have your response approved, or better yet written, by senior management. Do not farm this out to a low level employee or to a paid blogger. This must be written by and approved by management.
Be sure that the response is well written, and addresses the negative comment specifically. Do not, ever, write in a snide, insulting, derogatory, or in a corporate-speak tone of voice.
You must keep the sympathy of the reader. Not the complainer, but the reader of your response. Remember, the reader does not know the situation. Writing as though the response comes from a caring person is mandatory. Companies don't care (they can't they are not human), but people do. Be sure your response cares, or you will end up looking even worse than you do already.
Some things to keep in mind.
- Always keep the sympathy of the reader.
- Edit ruthlessly. A typo will make the company look inept. People will forever say, "Did you see their response? Shows how much they care. They can't even spell." And they will be right. Your competition will love it. You won't.
- Write your response in easy to understood language using simple words, short sentences, and short paragraphs. Write with a minimum of punctuation and without jargon. I know you're smart. I get that. What you need to get is that smart people write so that their message is clear. Show the world how smart you are.
- Don't make excuses. It is what it is.
- The reader does not know the situation, only the complaint. So, explain it. The short version, please.
- Tell the reader, specifically, what you did to address the situation.
- Stick to the facts. When unfairly maligned, or the victim of an outright lie, explain that dispassionately.
- If the comment is not justified because the complainer is simply unreasonable and refused everything you did to satisfy him or her. Well then, all you need do is show the reader, not the complainer, what you did to satisfy the complainer. Let what you did, the actions you took, show the reader that it is the complainer who is being unreasonable, not you.
- One last thing do not e-mail anything to anyone regarding this situation that you do not want to see published in the public domain. Should an e-mail accidentally get out of the company the damage will result in more to explain. Worse, you will now have to explain you very own words. Carve these words on rock, "Don't send anything that I don't want to see in headlines." Whenever you are tempted to violate those 11 words, hit yourself in the head with the rock.
To watch the net for comments, Google Alerts is a good choice.
