Home » Blog » Learn how to respond to comments, compliments & complaints

Learn how to respond to comments, compliments & complaints

If you’re setting up social listening to monitor mentions, there’s no point in ignoring what your customers are saying; whether it’s good or bad. 

Every business has got a bad review at some point or maybe even a fake one, but it’s how you deal with it that makes your brand stand out.

If you’re looking at a complaint or someone venting about your product or service, reach out. Start with an apology such as ‘I’m sorry you’re having this experience’ and then deal head-on with the issue raised. Offer to have a discussion to resolve it, a private chat via WhatsApp or other channels. Show that you care and want to do your best to keep them as a customer.

For comments on social media, it’s important to respond quickly. If it’s a positive tweet or post then express your thanks and add personalization if the comment allows it. For negative comments, again thank them for taking the time to comment but offer them the chance to talk to someone or reach out with more details so you can help solve the issue.

Tip: Find out how to use direct messaging in your marketing activities by reading ‘WhatsApp Marketing: What You Need to Know’.

Take notes

It’s important to keep track of interactions to gain insights into your audience.

Set up a spreadsheet and make it someone’s responsibility to keep it update. This could be a member of your marketing or customer whatsapp number list service team as decided when you set up your social media style guide and routine.

Take note of each comment type – e.g. one for compliments and one for complaints. Then each time you receive a comment worth noting you can pop it into your doc in the appropriate section.

As Katrina Noelle says: “It’s a question of what your social data is telling you. So, if we start a relationship with a brand; What are you learning there? What can we use and learn from it to make our work more targeted?”

Read: ‘How to Manage Online Customer Reviews’ for more information in this area.

Take action

Take out your updated spreadsheet on a weekly recent studies on the impact of content updates on website rankings or monthly basis and look at each tab with a fresh eye. Is there a consistent theme 10 tips for this black friday that is emerging in your complaints or a pattern you can see that could help you craft better content or improve a service?

If so, you should address this with your customer service team and discuss whether you can come up with a sustainable solution to tackle the issues customers are facing.

You can always reach out via a poll on social media or through an email campaign to get further feedback. 

This is also a great time to take sms to data screenshots of your social compliments and positive feedback – these can be used to add credibility to future marketing materials like sales collateral and even website copy.

Scroll to Top