Crisis + Management + How To = It’s a conversation, don’t get upset
A consumer has started a flame war reviewing your product on her own blog, on Amazon.com, Yelp, or any website relying on social media effect? the result is a snowball effect and you need to stop it? Or you’re already tracking user generated content regarding your product/ service and you’re willing to make the right move. Then there’s one simple advice to keep in mind. You’re starting a human to human conversation, and the best way to change people’s mindset is to get interested in their feedbacks (they’re real feedback, not always clear, but it’s your job finding what’s interesting in them) and embrace the critics. In the end, you can’t be that smart you’ve managed to do it all right at the first time, can you?
By embracing their critics I mean these things:
- Consumers are always right, you’re wrong if you think anything else. Aren’t they people paying your salary? Don’t think in terms of buying/ selling but in terms of interest/ efficiency: interest in the product because I (consumer) know what’s in it for me.
- Analyse critics and negative feedbacks before rushing into any upset mindset “They’re dumb, they don’t understand what we’ve done”. If people don’t understand, that means you have to check again your way of marketing your product/ service. What’s the real purpose of it? How does it make the customer’s life easier/ more interesting?
- Invite people to help you (brand): request them to give you more info, more feedback, more specific details. Don’t drop in the conversation to throw your marketing speach, be interested in what they’ve to say. They took time to write their feedbacks, they’re already engaged with the brand, so leverage their interest.
- Specify your points and answer their questions: join the conversation they started to give more info, get available to them if any other questions, facilitate the conversation (add your job title, contact info, and website)
Now you’ve done your fireman job and eventually you’ve turn these consumers into allies and “partners”, why not anticipate similar issues? Maybe you should think about how much it cost you to deal with that issue, how much stickiness to the brand you’ve generated joining the conversation, and see the bottom line. That bottom line might be enough to setup a new recruitment: a community manager. Did you already have been into that situation? Share with us!
For more you may read the case study offered by Everydotconnects.com.
Photo Credit: foreversouls
