How a company can benefit from criticism

A common criticism of social media is the possibility a negative comment will be made about the company or product or service and it will deter future sales. This blog shows how negative criticism can be good for a company based on how it handles these comments made via a social media outlet.

Imagine a fan of your company’s Facebook page posts a negative comment about your company – “Company XYZ has horrible customer service. I called to ask a question and was yelled at by an employee. I’ll never shop here again!” No business owner in their right mind would let this type of comment go without replying.

To begin creating positive feedback from a negative comment, first apologize online by replying to the comment and offer to discuss the manner over the phone. Next, promote ways customers can contact the company to discuss experiences with your company. Promote these options on all social media pages, on the company’s Web site and within enewsletters. Here are examples of how to word your first response to a negative comment on a social media page:

• We are very sorry for your negative experience at our company. Can you call 913-999-999, ask for John Doe and we can figure out how to resolve this? Again, Company XYZ wants to make all customer experiences positive.
• This is Sidney Sue at Company XYZ and I want to apologize for the experience you had with our company. We’d like to make this up to you. Can you call 913-000-0000 and we can discuss the details? We want to correct any wrong we’ve done and look forward to your call.

How current customers can deter negative criticism

According to Dave Balter’s “Grapevine: The New Art of Word-of-Mouth Marketing” criticism can create a backlash of positivity. Balter points out his research with many WOM campaigns has shown people who like a product but who don’t promote the product to others can suddenly become vocal advocates. A product that would incite these people to become vocal must be a positive relationship with the company (think of a close-knit family owned company) or an attachment they feel towards (think about how some people feel towards their cars). “We call these people the quiet advocates, and there are often many more of them for a product than there are passionate evangelists,” said Balter.

The opposite side of the spectrum includes the vocal Apple fans. When the company creates negative criticism, there are thousands more fans who charge to the company’s rescue. Think about it – do fans join a specific social media page to shout their problems with a company? No. They create separate Web sites or social media sites to spout their concerns. If a person did post a negative criticism to a social media page, there will be more positive feedback from the existing hundreds or thousands of fans to come to the company’s rescue.

Other ways criticism can help a company

• Criticism can increase quality of product or service
• Criticism gives a company feedback on how aspects of the company is run, i.e., is there more negative feedback about a product or service? Is there more criticism about a particular aspect of a product (think speed problems with Toyota Prius)

I can write a book about how negative criticism can help a company but, unfortunately, a blog can only be so many words. Do you have an example of how negative feedback helped your company? Leave a comment and share.