Get Your Emotions Under Control
Hey, I get it! You’ve put countless hours and endless energy into your online business and your website. You worked painfully hard at learning from Kyle and others on how to build a great website and you stayed up all night sometimes to get everything looking the way you want, so when someone criticizes your hard work in an online forum, it’s only natural to feel upset. That online forum can be your comment inbox, your social media sites, because if it is online, it is viral. Getting negative comments on social media can feel like an attack on your business you are trying so hard to build.
The important thing to remember is that people who post negative comments on social media and your website(s) just want to be heard. Ignoring a rude comment will show them and your other followers on social media that you don’t care about their experience or opinions.
If you take the time to thoughtfully respond, however, you can take control of the situation and turn negativity into a positive experience for your online business.
Take a minute and a few deep breaths to see that this comment is not meant to be a personal affront. More than likely, the commenter simply wants to be heard and their thoughts considered.
Even if the feedback seems harsh or aggressive, it’s probably caused by something small that riled them up. Read over their post and see if you can put together the root of the problem, and what you can do to improve the situation.
Understand that they were likely writing their comment in the heat of the moment. With a little time and some recognition of their complaint or issue, there is an excellent chance they will be less negative later.
So, before you angrily respond to the comment, take a moment to breath and stay away from the keyboard. Take a walk around the block if you must. Whatever you need to do to put your emotions in take, because responding to rudeness with more rudeness will only hurt your online business.
Reply
I think there are advantages and disadvantages to both dealing with customer service online and dealing with customer service in person. In person, it might be easier because the issue can be resolved perhaps more quickly, because when you are online, there is a timeline for which to handle things. That being said, I think it is easier online because that timeline - time in between replies - allows the parties to calm down and think logically before responding to something.
I cannot say enough how much I appreciate you taking the time to check out this tutorial.
Steph
Thanks Steph
That is awesome to hear. I am glad this was very helpful to you.
Steph
I try to 'agree before differing' (where possible) when responding to negative comments.
Also, sometimes its important to remember the motives behind the people arriving through Site Comments - they are not representative of my target audience usually.
It is often clear they have skim read the article and made broad assumptions to cut down on reading time and rack up another 'comment'.
