Businesses live and die upon word-of-mouth referrals. Satisfied customers spread the word by making compliments, but dissatisfied customers spread 'worst ... ever!' comments.
These days, social media spreads word-of-mouth far and wide: on Facebook, Google, TripAdvisor and many more digital platforms. Inevitably, negative comments from customers and competitors will be posted online. Too many negative posts and reviews online will damage the reputation of the business, and which may ruin the business.
In this article we take a quick look at the legal strategy and at the marketing strategy a business can use to deal with negative comments posted on social media.
Legal Strategy to remove negative comments -
Start by using the Facebook/Google/Tripadvisor reporting mechanism to flag a post as ‘Hate speech’, ‘hateful’, ‘inappropriate’ or ‘improper’. This can be effective if the comment is particularly nasty, but it will not work if it only damages a reputation because criticism is treated as ‘freedom of speech’.
As a fallback strategy, insert a 'non-disparagement clause' into the terms and conditions of the contract with the customer. This clause makes it a breach of contract for a customer to make nasty (disparaging) comments about the business.
Marketing Strategy to neutralise negative comments -
The marketing strategy starts with setting up online sites for the business - a webpage, a Facebook page, a Linkedin page, a Google page, and pages on specialist sites such as TripAdvisor for hotels and restaurants. This establishes a strong presence.
The marketing strategy continues with continuous monitoring - blocking/hiding/removing nasty posts from sites which are under the control of the business, and by writing responses to reviews on sites which are not under control the control of the business.