How to Respond to Customer Complaints on Social Media

The worst response to customer complaints on social media is no response at all.

What’s worse than customer complaints? Customer complaints on social media, where virtually anyone, including prospective customers, can read about the unfortunate experiences of others at your business.

Indeed, with respect to customer complaints on social media, we have both “good” and “bad” news.

First, the bad news: Eventually, some customers will complain about your business on social media. Even the most customer-centric businesses — including Disney, for example — occasionally receive customer complaints through Facebook, Twitter, or other social media networks.

Now, the good news: Your business can use a simple six-step strategy to respond to customer complaints on social media.

Before we reveal how to respond to customer complaints on social media, we need to address two critical rules:

• First, your business should continuously monitor your social media accounts and the Internet, including websites like Yelp, for customer complaints. Although some commercial vendors offer this service for a fee, your business can always create a free “Google alert” to detect online references to your business at https://www.google.com/alerts.

• Second, your business should never ignore customer complaints on social media. As outlandish as some of them might appear, your business should always respond to customer complaints. Why? If your business neglects to respond to customer complaints on social media, not only will your complaining customers feel ignored, but your prospective customers — whom we refer to as “bystanders” — will also likely conclude that, given your lack of responses, your business simply “doesn’t care” about customer complaints.

Now that we’ve covered the two critical rules governing customer complaints on social media, let’s discuss a simple six-step strategy your business can use to respond to these types of complaints.

Step 1: Acknowledge the complaint. For example, “Thank you for reaching out to us through Facebook to let us know about your experience” or “Thank you for providing us with this information.”

Step 2: Apologize to the customer. For example, “We genuinely apologize for this experience” or “We sincerely apologize that this occurred.”

Step 3: If applicable, include contextual information helpful to bystanders. For example, “We want to let you know that the Transportation Security Administration, not our airline, screens passengers entering the terminal gates” or “We want to let you know that the newspaper advertisement contained inaccurate information about our sale.”

Step 4: Emphasize your commitment to customer service. For example, “We are committed to providing the best travel experience to our customers” or “We are committed to providing our customers with accurate information about our sale events.”

Step 5: Reveal your intention to contact the customer to resolve the issue. For example, if your business possesses the customer’s contact information,”We will contact you right away to discuss and resolve this issue” or, if your business does not possess the customer’s contact information, “We kindly and humbly ask you to call us to discuss and resolve this situation. Our number is…”

Step 6: Close by thanking, and apologizing to, the customer. For example, “Thank you for letting us know of your experience. Again, we apologize that this occurred, and we look forward to resolving your concerns” or “Again, we are so sorry this happened. Please accept our apology. In the meantime, we look forward to resolving the situation.”

If you want to see an example of a business that does an exceptional job of responding to customer complaints (and compliments), visit the Hyatt Concierge Twitter account (@HyattConcierge) at https://twitter.com/HyattConcierge. Note how quickly and effectively the Hyatt responds to customer complaints and to customer compliments.

In closing, remember to follow through with your promise to contact complaining customers. If, for whatever reason, your business is unable to establish contact with a complaining customer on social media, consider supplementing your reply with an appropriate message, such as “John, we’ve attempted to reach out to you through phone and email without success. We really want to resolve this situation, so please contact us at…”

This week, take a moment to review your process governing customer complaints on social media, and consider using the above strategy if your business does not yet have a formal process to respond to social media complaints.

As always, have a “customerific” week!

Mark