so your customer made a negative review, now what?

so your customer made a negative review, now what?.....respond, honestly.

Working for a product-focused social networking site I have the opportunity to work directly with both the end-users and manufacturers of laboratory equipment. I like to think I play for both teams. As a consumer social networking sites are a fantastic outlet to share with others the experiences you've had with vendors both negative and positive to help influence their buying decision. For vendors I believe they should be given a fair opportunity to engage and respond to any comments around their brand. Like most sites I have tools in place to ensure vendors can monitor what is being said.

Recently I encountered a situation where a user had an unpleasant experience with a company, the customer had made it known to his sales rep that he was unhappy and the company did whatever they could to help him but at the end of the day it still wasn't sitting well with him and he had to vent. The customer found my site and realizing there was an open forum where he could let others know about his experience that he did. Because this particular company had tools in place to monitor social media they were able to react quickly. Based on the customers comments they were able to determine right away who had made the post, but before the sales rep contacted the customer he called me. Obviously he was upset and wanted the post removed but he understood that he had to respond, but he just wasn't sure what to say. So I asked him what happened. The rep explained the entire scenario to me and frankly it sounded like a more than acceptable answer as to why this situation occurred, sure if I was the customer I would have been rightfully upset but things happen. The rep posted exactly what he told me.

What was important is that the company respond to their customer who more than appreciated yet another attempt to make things rights. Now others will recognize that even though the company may not have been perfect they went all out to ensure customer satisfaction. In the end the customer and the sales rep were happy with their social networking experience, and everyone came out a winner.