Dealing with negative comments
Posted 15 June 2007 at 8:25AM by Mark White in Business blogging
Last week, I had the pleasure on being involved in a BT Web Seminar with Mike Butcher of tbites, Ivan Croxford who heads up BT Tradespace and Martin Cherry of Bannermann Technology during which we looked at blogging and online communities.
One issue we touched on during the day was that of negative comments being left on blogs or in the feedback areas of online communities and how to deal with them. It's also an area over which companies often voice their concerns when they look at setting up their own blogs.
On the whole, people dislike negative comments being made about them, and companies and company bloggers are no different. We react when we receive negative comments on a post we've written: for the individual blogger, there's personal pride at stake; for businesses, there's the concern that it will reflect badly on their organisation and alienate customers or prospects who see it.
So, for some, the gut reaction is to suppress it ... moderate it out ... pretend it never happened. Better still, don't allow anyone to comment! That will also take away the guilt factor of knowing that the comment was made but that you haven't approved it!
Of course, the person who wanted to complain on your blog will still do so, they will just go elsewhere ... generally somewhere where you won't have the chance to respond. So instead, give people the chance to raise the issue on your blog and, in the process, you'll be giving yourself the chance to answer those concerns.
For me, there are three key reasons why I'd want to do that and they're nothing to do with blogging and everything to do with business:
- Firstly, it costs much more, both in terms of time and money, to find new clients than it does to keep your current ones;
- Secondly, customers with negative experiences are more likely to tell people about them than customers with positive experiences. However, customers who have had a negative experience which has been solved tend to be the most vocal;
- Thirdly, it costs more to fix a problem than to prevent it in the first place.
By responding and resolving their issues, we have the chance not only to keep them as a customer but possibly turn them into an advocate for your company again. In any case, by openly allowing the criticisms and answering them, you are more likely to gain respect in the eyes of other readers than lose it.
You may also be receiving valuable feedback which could help improve an aspect of your company's activities and fix a problem which already exists. Without this feedback, you could remain blissfully unaware of an issue which is costing you clients who have decided not to complain but rather "vote with their feet" and look for another supplier.
Certainly you need to make sure that the comments comply with any guidelines that you have in place - and in a corporate blog, they should exist - but those should cover areas such as abusive or racist language rather than constructive criticism. So rather than suppressing negative comments, you should encourage comments and feedback of all types. While it might sometimes seem a painful process in the short-term, the long-term benefits will prove far more valuable.
Tags: BT Tradespace, BT Web Seminars, business blogging, negative comments, online communities
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