How To Respond to Complaints On Facebook

Photo Credit: Cushing Memorial Library & Archives, Texas A&M

Every so often I see an article like this and I roll my eyes, thinking, "OMG, here we go again..."  Then, usually not too long after that, I'll see the very reason why we still need posts like this.  Negative posts or complaints on a business' Facebook page will arise and the owner/marketing/PR staff will decide to sweep it under the rug rather than address it head-on and look at it as a tremendous opportunity to increase quality and strengthen the core of their business.

And look, there are no shortage of books and other blog posts that address this issue.  I'm not covering new ground here.  Instead, I only intend to outline how I've done this. 

To give you a quick background, one of the companies I have worked with had Rip-Off Reports littered all over the web about them.  Complaints and lawsuits were the norm for this program.  I'm telling you this to illustrate that I came into a very negative situation by starting a Facebook page for them.  In fact, in the first days of Facebook, ANYTHING we posted on our page would be met with swift negative response.

And now that I've moved on and no longer work for said company, I see them routinely delete negative posts on their page and I'm reminded again:  Folks still do not get this human business thing.

So, here goes.  AGAIN.

Below is my basic route for turning a Rip-Off Report laiden program to one with a Facebook page averaging 4-star reviews and an EdgeRank score of 103.

Step 1: Set Up Your Reviews Tab

This is the scariest thing of all.  And backwards by what most experts tout.  Some experts you say need a plan in place first.  I say quit f'ing around and get this up immediately.  As the human being you are, you can personally respond to bad reviews until the company response plan is in place. 

In the early days with the company above, when a negative review would come, I'd simply respond to that person via comment and personal message.  Then, I'd run to whomever could help me right the wrong.  Most of the time, my direct report would do just fine.

With this, the complainer would usually apologize - stating that they had no idea human being was actually listening.  We'd still fix their problem.  They'd "fix" their review.  Or in the case of negative comments, they'd respond with some thanks.  But, I'd NEVER take down a negative comment, even after the situation was fixed.  Those posts and the subsequent comments were social proof gold that we were a responsive business that took those things seriously.

Step 2:  Build Your Response Team

Again, most folks will say you need to build your plan first.  In my experience, you can't build your plan without knowing what your resources are.  Build your team, gauge your resources, then construct a plan.

I'm an organic build kind of guy, that's just how I roll.  I want to identify the passionate folks before I make my plan rather than hocking the duties off on a certain department that could care less.

Step 3: Put Together a Response Plan (Or Not)

I'm going to confess something that'll make the social experts crap their pants.  I never really had a formal response plan in place.  It just didn't feel genuine to me.  I mean, do you have a response plan outlined for when you piss one of your real-life buddies off?  No.

Instead of a formal plan, I did have a loosely defined process.  Which was basically that:

• I would respond as quickly as possible
• I would respond as genuinely as possible
• I would alert our response team to sit back and monitor and weigh in accordingly
• I would let the chips fall where they may, since interaction can't be forced
• We would address the complaint internally to gauge areas of improvement in our business

Most of the time, compaints would turn into apologies.  Apologies would turn into rave reviews.   Or better reviews. 

In every case though, we would always offer to take things offline and reach out via phone.  There's that human thing again.

Step 4:  Everyone Must Have the Ability to Respond

I saw a tweet from D.M. Scott a week or so ago that said something like "Companies that want to be real-time need to push decision making as far down the ladder as possible..."  I'm ultra-paraphrasing there, but that is the gist of what the tweet.

Make sense?

Let's toss out the time decay factor of EdgeRank and be human beings for a minute: Do you know what happens the longer you wait to apologize to someone?

That's right.  They start to stand even more firm in their position of thinking you are an a-hole.  So:

Your apologies and responses need to be swift and firm. 

Swift, genuine response cannot be done by corporate committee.  It just can't.  Unless your Social Media committee meets every 15 minutes of every day.  Some of the ones I've been on meet once a week.

Make part of your response plan be to respond - FAST.  And remember: by responding, you do not have to fix the customers problems in the first response.  Just letting them know someone is there listening will already start to quell some anxiety.

Then, pass the messaging on to the rest of the team to help decide which type of action you will take to fix the concern.

How Do You Respond To Complaints On Facebook?

So, how do you do it?  You may notice that I did not cover setting up listening posts of any kind.  Mostly because I think the tools are crap unless you have the core values in place that allow you to repond like a human being. 

So, again - what's YOUR deal?