Social Media - how not to do it

[GAVLAD]

I've just been reading visitor reviews on Trip Advisor and was horrified to read some of the business's in question replies to what reads as genuine reviews of peoples opinions and experiences of that business.

I have worked in the leisure industry for twenty years and although no expert to social media, I fully appreciate that one persons opinion may differ hugely from another.
I also appreciate the power of customer satisfaction and how you are judged by your response to constructive or poor criticism.

When there are numerous poor rating reviews posted consecutively from a wide range of visitors, surely that should highlight a pattern in deficiencies in areas of that business?

That being the case, you would not expect the owner or manager to annihilate the reviewers with such personal derogatory remarks, make accusations of being a liar or call/label their family or even ban someone from revisiting because of their review.

Regardless of how poor the review or if a review posted their take on events , I would expect the business to show some sort of professionalism, even if it was through gritted teeth.

Are you a business owner who utilises social media?
How would you react to a negative review? - Would you go on there attack? Would you get personal? Would you ignore and not reply? Would you show reasoning with your response? What would you do?
Bearing in mind, how you handle it is always out there on the internet for all to see and judge.

I have to say, I am surprised by some of the replies from businesses on Trip Advisor.
Given that Covid has had such an impact on the leisure sector, I would not have expected businesses to further alienate clients with some of the things said.

 

[On the road again]

It's a difficult call. Before I retired (ex hotel manager) I answered every TA post about the property I was managing. In that position , more often than not,you have full details of any incidents, any comments, any complaints so can give a reasoned response and also mention what action you took to put things right - something not often mentioned by the reviewer, particluarly the'ranters'.

The threat of putting a bad review on TA,"unless you do something about it now" is meaningless because you do, of course have the right of reply and, normally, with your response, the last word. If someone had threatened this I always mentioned this in my response. That tends to restore some balance to the comments.

There is no point in insulting those attacking but there is the opportunity to point out , gently and skillfully,spelling and grammatical errors,factual errors and downright lies by quoting their remarks in your response. There is a skill to responding and, sadly, often many of those with the authority to respond are not very well equipped to do so hence the slanging matches you refer to.

The real skill is to operate your business well with a customer focus, an ability to listen and the authority to resolve any issues at the time is paramount and, if you do that, then the majority of comments will be favourable. There is also a skill to reading TA reviews, there is a trend that's easy to discern and, if the majority are favourable then you can make your own judgement about the adverse ones which are often about an irrelevant factor rather than the product. eg when judging whether to stay there or not my room overlooked a flat roof - not a critical consideration if you're attending a one off, one night event.

There is one overriding factor though, as I used to tell my managers and Heads of Departments and that's that, whatever you do, however hard you try, you can't legislate for nutters!