Protect Your Brand from Negative Mentions

There used be a standard formula that said when a consumer experienced poor customer service they would tell ten of their friends. That was before the internet, smartphones and social media.

In today’s instant-access, multimedia environment, one unhappy person can reach literally thousands, if not millions of people by sending their complaint or issue they had about your article or website viral. Sadly, negative comments seem to be more contagious than positive ones. You’ve probably seen video clips on YouTube where customer service personnel aggravated situations by their rudeness and by not listening and not resolving the complaint.

That’s why it is very critical to use your interactions with unhappy commenters as an opportunity to turn them around. Unresolved issues tend to escalate. They get posted to social media pages and more and more unhappy commenters join the conversation. Negativity is like a disease if you think about it and people can be easily influenced. The louder the conversation gets, the more the negative sentiment towards your brand will spread to other people in your target market. By providing good customer service and making those unhappy people feel heard you can minimize your negative publicity.

This relates to whether you are promoting a particular product or company and especially is true if you are one of the many WA members who make your own product and sell it online. I know we have plenty of members who sell their own photography, art, jewelry, etc. online and this tutorial is especially important to those individuals.