A few days ago I got a concerned Direct Message on Twitter from a friend of mine. Her company had been the benefactor of a very positive article on a Washington Post blog. That’s good. Unfortunately, commenters were attacking the business, based on the information contained in the article, which implied that the company didn’t provide health insurance to its workers. As many companies would be in this situation, this person was very upset and unsure of what to do next.
My advice to her is the same I will give to you. If you see negative comments on a blog/site, especially those based on inaccurate information, you need to address those comments. In this case, the negative comments seemed to be originating from the article’s implication that this company did not provide health insurance to its employees.
Prior to my friend Allison commenting, the post had 6 comments, all of which were either critical, or downright negative toward Hardwood Artisians. Allison did exactly what you should do if your company is coming under fire. She kept her cool, politely thanked the commenters for their feedback, and set the record straight about how the company handled providing health insurance to its employees. And she also did something else that’s very important; she invited commenters to continue to leave her feedback.
Hi, I’m the Director of Marketing for Hardwood Artisans.
Thanks to all the commenters for all the interest in Hardwood Artisans. I do have one quick correction, no fault of Tom’s. We’ve had health insurance available through the company since August of 2007. Employees can elect to take advantage of the company plan, but some have their own plans or get insurance through their spouses. Personally, I have the company plan.
If anyone would like more information or has more feedback, feel free to email me at alison@hardwoodartisans.com or post here. I’m always happy to answer questions.
Alison Heath
When Allison left that comment, the entire tone of the conversation changed. Prior to Allison’s comment, 6 comments were left to the post about Hardwood Artisians, all of them were negative. After Allison’s comment, 11 other people commented, and ten of them were positive. Most even came to the defense of HA, and one commenter added: “Still, if nothing else, my hat is off to Alison for being willing to step into the lion’s den to answer questions”
As I told Allison, as soon as she joined the conversation and encouraged interaction, the tone of the dialogue changed from people throwing negative comments AT the company, to the commenters talking WITH Allison. And then Allison later blogged about the article on HA’s own blog.
What can you learn from how Allison handled this situation?
1 – If someone is leaving negative comments about your company, respond.
2 – Be thankful and polite. Nothing escalates a negative comment into a full-bore flamewar faster than an ‘Oh yeah?!?’ reply from the company.
3 – If commenters are jumping to the wrong conclusion about your company, kindly correct them with the proper information.
4 – Thank them for their feedback, and encourage them to provide more. Leave your email address so they can contact you off the blog, if they choose.
If you are thankful and respectful toward commenters, even those that are attacking your company, the end result will almost always be a positive experience. Allison’s experience isn’t the exception, it’s the norm.
Mack, simple and effective response suggestions.
Take every communication from a client as feedback that may represent the ideas of many other people.
I like to think that any response is going to a group of people – like a public relations event.
Take time to compose a gracious response that shows you understand the concerns.
Very well put! I think that being transparent and not sweeping misunderstandings under the rug is critical. It’s also important to be mindful of the language you use in your reply. It’s really easy to sound defensive so taking your time by not posting a snap reply in the heat of the moment, and being cognizant of your tone are healthy steps in the process.
What a great post and example of customer service. I’d be curious, if her company didn’t offer health insurance what would have been an appropriate comment for Allison to leave?
ps the “Type the word” box was prefilled with the correct word.
This reminds me of a post I recently read about how the U.S. Air Force handles public situations like this.
Here’s the post: http://www.globalnerdy.com/2008/12/30/the-air-forces-rules-of-engagement-for-blogging/
It also includes a PDF file for download and printing if you need a quick visual reference.
“What a great post and example of customer service. I’d be curious, if her company didn’t offer health insurance what would have been an appropriate comment for Allison to leave?”
That’s a great question Carrie, because I believe many companies assume there’s nothing they can do in such a situation. Even if the commenters were right about HA offering no health insurance to any workers, Allison still should have calmly replied. She still should have thanked the commenters for their feedback, and should have tried to explain her company’s position and reasoning toward providing (or not providing) health insurance to its workers.
A polite, calm and thankful comment like Allison left is always preferrable to saying nothing at all. As I said in the post, Allison’s experience isn’t the exception, it’s the norm. If you are considerate of commenters and respect them enough to respond, and ENCOURAGE additional feedback, then they will almost always appreciate that.
I’m so glad that my experience is helping others learn what to do in similar situations. I have to say, I didn’t doubt Mack’s advice even a little bit at the time, but it still worked more magic than I could have imagined.
The politeness was really the key. No matter how critical the comments got, I was positive, deliberately, carefully gracious, thanked them for their comments and tried to clarify what I thought was necessary.
What Mack doesn’t know is that I also got several emails from customers and complete strangers thanking me for being engaged in the conversation and wanting to take the discussion further. Not only was I able to respond to the incorrect assumptions they were making, I was able to improve their opinions of our company and make some really positive connections with potential new customers and existing evangelists.
And thanks again to Mack for being willing to help a casual Twitter buddy on such short notice and giving such great advice. He’s a treasure.
I think HA and Alison’s response really harness the power of the medium, which is about real people and real relationships.
There was a story that went the opposite way last year when a blogger commented about a Target billboard that she felt was demoralizing to women and when she contacted the company they basically said they didn’t consider bloggers part of the media and would not respond publicly to her concern. It caused quite a backlash in the blogging community and reflected poorly on Target.
When we respond in a personal and open way, even though we work for organizations and need to uphold their policies, people respond – if we are polite and considerate, we will get it back.
Ultimately, we want to know and address the concerns of our customers. It is great to have a medium where we can hear directly from them and use the information to improve our services for them.
Great article.
In the words of the late and much missed Douglas Adams, the message is “Don’t Panic!”
By listening, learning and engaging in the conversation, Alison was able to guide it to a much better outcome – one that reflected the honesty, openness and transparency that her audience was looking for.
Mack, I think that in most cases this is excellent advice.
However, I would like to know how you would propose companies deal with negative comments posted on websites like “Ripoff Report.com” which are highly optimized by their owners to get top rankings and “extort” companies to pay their operators to publicly-discredit the posters?
Yes, a negative blog post here and there is quite easy to deal with, but many of the gripe sites that are proliferating the internet count on companies responding to posts to create MORE SEO optimized content. In otherwords, you’re damned if you respond, and damned if you don’t respond.
What do you do in those cases? It’s very easy to be pure and say “always engage in a dialogue” — but the complaint sites are just that: places that attract all kinds of outlandish claims by people who have very personal axes to grind and little personal or legal accountability for the accusations they make.
It is very difficult to engage these types of people in “reasonable” conversations in these forums. Believe me, I’ve seen companies try to do it and it just results in more and more escalation — which is EXACTLY what the operators of these sites are counting on.
These types of gripe sites are basically for-profit enterprises masquerading as “consumer advocacy” sites. As soon as the company agrees to pay the owner the “mediation fee” the “consumer advocate” rolls the person complaining under the bus.
I’m curious as to how you would deal with THAT situation, which is much more potentially explosive than someone complaining about your company in a blog comment somewhere — that stuff is easy.
Bravo. Way to deflate it.
MC that’s a GREAT question! Note I told Allison that “If you are thankful and respectful toward commenters, even those that are attacking your company, the end result will almost always be a positive experience.”
ALMOST always. Unfortunately, there are some people that simply want to attack a particular company. And if you are an employee for that company, there is very little if any chance of changing their opinion of your company, no matter what you say or do.
And you mention a website that promotes this. Even worse, what if it’s an individual blogger that’s blindly attacking your company?
What I’d suggest in that case is that the company do two things:
1 – Consider starting a blog. Think about how most people would find negative attacks by a blogger? They would show up in search results. But if the company was blogging? Then their blog posts would likely be showing up in search results as well.
2 – I’d reach out to my company’s online evangelists, and embrace them. Let’s say Company ABC has a blogger that’s attacking them on his blog. The blogger’s constant attacks on the company will show up in search results, and that’s not good. But what if the company reached out to its blogging evangelists? Then the POSITIVE blog posts from Company ABC’s evangelists would ALSO show up in search results.
When you search for a company and you see a high-ranking post talking about how that company SUCKS, it makes you wonder about the company. But when you search for a company and see nine blog posts talking about what a wonderful company ABC is, and one post saying that ABC sucks, then it makes you wonder about that one blogger, doesn’t it?
The bottom line is that you handle a negative conversation by participating. If you can’t participate in the negative conversation itself, then you find other ways to participate. It could be on your blog/site, or it could be by reaching out to your happy customers to help you.
Quote: “I’m curious as to how you would deal with THAT situation,”
This problem has been around a long time … there is no “one size fits all” answer:
“Answer a fool according to his folly” (Proverbs 26:5)
“Answer not a fool according to his folly” (Proverbs 26:4)
As frustrating as negative, and incorrect, comments can be, the beauty of the internet is the interactive aspect of it. That means that not only can readers comment, but so can the writers of the article and those being discussed in it. Addressing those that have the wrong information is one of the reasons to allow comments on your articles. Thanks for reminding us that commenting isn’t just for the visitors of the site.
First of all congratulation for such a great site. I learned a lot reading article here today. I will make sure i visit this site once a day so i can learn more.
Excellent advice Mack. This tends to happen quite often, especially on newssites where people can leave comments. I am going to take your advice from now on and follow Alison’s example of being polite, even when it’s difficult.
Mack, great advice…and thanks to you and Alison for a great case study!
I am hoping that companies will begin to embrace being forthright and engaged (versus shying away), as it always help to defuse/neutralize a crisis situation (on- and off-line). Typically they brew because the negative comments come from people that just want a voice (or to be heard) and quite often they stem from someone having incorrect information. Why not use a negative situation to bridge to a positive one?
Mack -
I wonder how you would recommend companies handle disputes not of fact but of principle.
In other words, had your friend’s company not offered health insurance and believed it was their God-given right to not offer it, how should the company have responded?
Cam if that’s central to the core beliefs of the company, then I think they need to embrace it. But they also need to understand that taking such a stand based on religious convictions is going to delight some current/potential customers, and infuriate others. Here in the South, Chick Fil-A closes on Sundays so their employees can attend church services. That’s core to their beliefs, at the same time, they obviously lose their Sunday business to competitors. Course they might gain extra business during the week from customers that share their beliefs.
I think with any such hot-button issue such as this, it’s often not WHAT you say, but HOW you say it. If the company is respectful of the beliefs of others when they explain their own, it will generally be received much better than if they try to suggest that their way is the ‘right way’.
Courtesy and respect for others should always be factored into any communication that the company has with its customers.
Thanks, Mack!
I love your concept of “not pushing against”. World leaders and politicians should take note. I believe we would have a more peaceful world if they did so.
I had to read this blog post.
Very funny about the well-intentioned press release that was cut off at the knees by the legal disclaimer! Thanks for bringing a smile to my day.
And I couldn’t agree more with Alison and Jennifer’s comments about how wonderful it is that the ‘net has become such an immediate and interactive forum for communication by people from all points of view, regions, and reasons for reading and weighing in on a topic. As in any venue for human interaction, from matters of etiquette to business negotiations to blogging, an attitude of respect despite differences leads to happier outcomes for all.
Sorry, I was commenting on a different article about regarding the press release…
it’s really funny…http://www.webinknow.com/2009/01/when-lawyers-get-in-the-way-of-pr.html and also from the “Get to the Point” eletter…both great posts!
I think your article is right on the point. If readers see an honest attempt by someone at a company trying to diffuse or address a complaint, it goes a long way to building trust and helps negate the negative comments.
Very promising There were posts that were placed against that blog that you did not place up and you used your moderating powers to not show both sides. You then rang one of the bloggers advising them of your position within franchising.
Interesting post. Will take a note of this.
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I think that being transparent and not sweeping misunderstandings under the rug is critical. It’s also important to be mindful of the language you use in your reply. It’s really easy to sound defensive so taking your time by not posting a snap reply in the heat of the moment, and being cognizant of your tone are healthy steps in the process.
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I never would have thought that. Thanks so much. This should clear up a lot of junk mail / spam.
I think that being transparent and not sweeping misunderstandings under the rug is critical. It’s also important to be mindful of the language you use in your reply.
[...] and politely. It really is that simple. Read more about handling negative comments in posts by Matt Collier and Amber Naslund, or google it. This is where your customer service skills should (and will [...]
[...] Fonte: Mack Collier [...]
[...] Fonte: Mack Collier [...]
You’ve pretty much answered all my doubts with this and have done a great job with the article.
Like yourself I’ve been blogging about this a bit and you’ve given me some good ideas for my next post. Thanks, I look forward to reading more
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Can any company contact website owner and ask to remove negative comments about them by threatening blogger to legal action?
Negative comments make people nervous. Perhaps you care less when someone tells you that they hated the post but a few negative comments are not going to be the undoing of your company, and in fact, can be a strong opportunity to prove yourself.
i really appropriate your post I read your article here today. and i am sure it will help others so thanks for sharing your good knowledge …..
I think that being transparent and not sweeping misunderstandings under the rug is critical. It’s also important to be mindful of the language you use in your reply. It’s really easy to sound defensive so taking your time by not posting a snap reply in the heat of the moment, and being cognizant of your tone are healthy steps in the process.
Thanks
[...] = ''; } Guest Post – Handling Negative Comments On Your Blog PostHow Should Your Company Handle Negative Blog Comments? div.socialicons{float:left;display:block;margin-right: 10px;}div.socialicons p{margin-bottom: [...]
Negative comments leads toward misunderstandings between customers and company. A company try to answer in a polite manner to all negative queries in order to market their product.
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