It seems most industries have had to adjust some of their practices to compensate for the appearance of social media. Those practices can range from marketing techniques, HR policies to data collection methods for ROI. It seems every major retailer, fast food restaurant, and corporation has some sort of social media presence, whether it is a Facebook fan page, Twitter handle or LinkedIn group. This new “universe,” while seemingly interesting and positive is rather difficult to navigate. One misstep on or offline can lead to a huge issue because information sharing is much more quick. How do you deal with that?
I have an example of a small boutique-like store that my friend co-owns which has a relatively small social media presence. They have a Facebook page and often post pictures of their new merchandise, offer ordering through the page (offering phone numbers and a website) and have a blog where they put together some of their pieces into an outfit or look. They also have done a few contests that if you post a comment on their page or blog, you would be entered for a drawing for a piece of merchandise. These are all pretty good ways to grow their business and online presence for such a small store.
Recently a customer came into the actual store wanting a refund for an item purchased after the 14 day policy clearly displayed in the front of the store (and honestly at most stores its 30 days). This person actually had the item for close to two months. The manager offered a store credit (against the policy) to help the customer, but could not offer a full cash refund (the item was purchased in 2011 and it was already 2012). The customer became irate and left the store. Following the incident, many VERY negative posts began to appear on the Facebook page from people outside of the state outlining bogus stories about how terrible this store was. In addition, this small group (about 5) of people also commented on every new post the store put out with negativity.
What do you do? Do you delete the posts and block (a function on Facebook) those individuals? Do you report them to Facebook? What CAN you do? This is a situation which is different than what I’ve seen in the past. Typically something ACTUALLY goes wrong and it is spread rapidly online. This time, the customer got friends and family to victimize this page because they disagreed with a practice of the store, but didn’t state anything related to the incident on their posts; they just fabricated incidents.
There are a few ways an organization can deal with this. If the stories are clearly fabricated, deleting them and blocking the posters from your page can solve the problem. In addition, reporting them could be helpful, but it may not result in any action. Change your settings to not enable individuals to post on your wall, etc. This will work and this is what page in question did.
Another way to deal with this type of situation is that you can take a stand: Post a status update outlining the incident; fictional stories are being posted to your site. Apologize to your other customers, but leave up the majority of the posts. Respond to the posts asking for details of the stories (i.e. what person they talked to, the date of the incident, what merchandise was in question, etc.). Being honest with your online following can go a long way. People understand that a small minority of individuals do those types of things, especially in the cover of “anonymity” and lack of consequences online. Those types of responses could result in positive responses from the customers you WANT to return.
Social media can offer a variety of benefits, one of which is an organization can be more plugged in to their customers. It makes organizations appear as a group of people rather than a large, face-less entity. It gives a line of communication unlike any other between consumers and the organization as a whole. While that is very positive, it can become negative if the organization or its customers make it so. While an organization always wants to avoid negativity, it shows its true colors when reacting to negative claims. Turning a negative into a positive by being honest with all customers really sets organizations apart from each other and makes them more competitive in a customer’s or potential customer’s eyes.
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