Dealing with Online Complaints

Written By Steve Strauss

Q: I manage a chain of stores and we do thousands of transactions a month. Our problem is that, given our large volume of business, a few people are inevitably unhappy about something, and these days, people post their unhappiness online. When people Google us, they often see these few complaints first. What do we do?

Zane

A: What you are talking about is increasingly a significant problem many small businesses are having because ever more things are migrating online, even complaining. The advent of sites like Yelp and its kin, as well as blogs, tweets, and comments, give a voice to people who in other times would have complained to the manager or maybe written a letter to the editor.

But these days, since anyone can post about your business or product, you simply must have a plan to handle this. Let me suggest that the solution is three-fold:

1. Monitor Twitter: By its very nature, Twitter is an immediate medium. People can and do dash of tweets at a moment's notice and, as those tweets are live immediately, someone with a bad experience of your business can share their unhappiness very loudly very quickly.

That is why it is incumbent upon you to monitor Twitter discussions that mention you or your business, at least daily, Think of this as your rapid response team, able to put out fires before they burn out of control.

In fact, using Twitter as a customer service tool can be a boon to your business since it allows you to

• Offer excellent, immediate customer care
• Build your brand as a customer-centric business
• Solve problems quickly

So if this makes sense, then the next step is to monitor relevant tweets. You can do so in several ways:

• On the right, in light blue, your Twitter account allows you to see any mentions of your Twitter name by clicking the "@(Your Name Here)" button, or
• This site, Monittor.com, lets you follow real-time keywords of your choosing on Twitter, orlets you follow real-time keywords of your choosing on Twitter.iness. fore they begin to burn out of control.
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• Use Tweetbeep. It allows you to "Keep track of conversations that mention you, your products, your company . . .  your website or blog."

Then the trick is, once you see a tweet that requires your attention, give it your attention.

2. Create appropriate Google Alerts: Of course people can comment on your business on many other sites other than Twitter, so what you also need to do is set up some Google Alerts. A Google Alert will hit your inbox daily or weekly, as you prefer, and let you know who said what, and where, about your business. Again then, the trick is simply to handle any negative feedback as needed, and also, create appropriate, responsive reply posts for other people to see.

3. Set up a Google Profile: As indicated, one of the real challenges in the online universe we live in is that people may see negative comments about your business (due to SEO and other factors) before they see your website or the good news.

That's where Google Profiles comes in.

A Google Profile is a page you set up using a Google template. Your Google Profile is written by you and in it you can explain what your business is, why it is special, and you can link to your website, blog and so on.

And the best part is that your profile is guaranteed to be on any Page 1 Google search mentioning you. How great is that? Guaranteed page 1 Google results is what we like. Google "Steve Strauss" for example and at the bottom of Page 1, you will see my Google Profile.

By taking these steps, you can be confident that you will be able to quickly and powerfully manage your online brand.