Quick Responses to Social Media

In Social Media this past Tuesday, we discussed various chapters from Real-time Marketing by David Scott. One of the concepts we talked about was responding quickly to comments made about your organization. Personally, I think that this has to be one of the smartest moves a company can make when it comes to addressing issues.

Just think of it from a consumer's point of view. How frustrating would it be to have a problem, inquire about it, and never get a response back? Or eventually get a response, but too late? In my opinion, this whole concept just goes back to a post I just made last week about good customer service. Being quick to respond, whether it's just to let them know that you're looking into it is what you should do. If you respond to things in a timely fashion, people are going to have a lot more respect for you, and that respect and trust will eventually turn into more of a beneficial relationship.

A company should take particular care if it seems to be a huge issue, and if it's online. Social media has greatly changed how fast word spreads. Someone can put up a post completely bashing your company's service, and within an few hours thousands have already viewed it, and depending on what the complaint was, you might have just lost that many customers.

However, you're not always going to have the answer right away, so don't just make something up you think will smooth things over. That's not going to help build trust with the company. Instead, if you don't know the answer simply state that you apologize for the inconvenience, but you are now aware of the situation and will be looking in to the best way to resolve it (or at least something along those lines).

So, in a nutshell, when it comes to responding quickly to social media comments, just put yourself in the consumer's shoes and think about how you would want to be treated.