Last week, I joined a conference call with an individual that can help my client’s entertainment business. What we found out after the call was that this individual and his company had two scathing unanswered criticisms reported online. Immediately, red flags went up.
Then yesterday, a client set up a meeting with another individual in the entertainment industry. When I looked up his name, guess what? In bold print was a scathing feedback on Yelp, it too was unanswered.
Courtney Rubin’s article, Why Every Minute Counts When It Comes to Social Media Complaints reminded me of the social media dangers in any industry. She wrote, “A whopping 88 percent of customers said that if confronted with unanswered complaints on a company’s social media site, they’d be either somewhat less likely or far less likely to do business with the company in the future.”
Any a small business, especially in the entertainment industry, must be vigilant about what is posted on line. If you grow to a size where the Twitter and Face Book comments become too numerous, you may have to hire a company to do this for you.
So, let’s say you are a small company and don’t have the resources to hire a company to find these comments. What I suggest is you do it yourself. Type your name, or your company’s name with the term, “scam,” “Ripoff,” or “review” and see what comes up. Make sure you go through a few pages and not just page one.
If you find one, address it professionally. Take the high road, and reply to the concern. Use the platform to state your company’s values like how customer satisfaction comes first. Don’t beat up on the complainer no matter how abusive they are. Give examples on how you remedied issues.
Another thing you can do is have some of your good customers write a response to the posting, along with yours. The positive comments should outweigh the negative one.
Any small business, and especially one in the entertainment industry, should be aware of what is said about them in social media. Don’t be a ostrich and ignore it.