“67 percent of consumers say they would not buy a product if it had as few as 3 negative reviews.” (Source: Lightspeed Research)In January 2012, the marketing team at McDonald’s thought they had the perfect social media campaign to kick off the New Year: they launched a Twitter campaign using the hashtag #McDStories.
The idea seemed innocent enough. The team would launch the campaign, and legions of inspired McDonald’s customers would start sharing heart-warming stories about having their first dates over French fries, celebrating baseball game wins with hamburgers, and recalling their kids’ delight at their first Happy Meal.
To make sure the campaign got launched with a bang, they paid to have #McDStories featured on Twitter’s home page. However, a mere two hours after launching the program (which must be a record somewhere), McDonald’s was forced to shut down the campaign.
Instead of gushing love notes, #McDStories was filled with snarky quips and McDonald’s detractors who turned it into a #bashtag to share their #McDHorrorStories.
Forbes magazine reporter Kashmir Hill quickly reported on the story with “McDStories: When a Hashtag Becomes a Bashtag.” And to his credit, McDonald’s very capable social media leader Rick Wion was one of the first to respond.
“Part of being in social media is knowing that you can’t control the message 100 percent of the time,” Wion noted. “As Twitter continues to evolve its platform and engagement opportunities, we’re learning from our experiences.”
So, what went wrong? How did a company that gets so much of its paid advertising right take this wrong turn?
Jeff Wilson, partner and chief customer experience designer at Sensei Marketing, posted a blog titled “Social Media Is Creating Bad Customers” to explain the situation.
“Why? It’s simple. . . . Because people deep down are bullies or at the very least indifferent to bullying. Add to this how easily the social media public is influenced by a mob mentality and you get recipes for McDStory after McDStory.”
His explanation just goes to underscore the dark side of social media marketing and the power of negative WOM. Wilson went on to explain that, in his view, social media gives the average person four factors empowering bad behavior, particularly against brands that are naively unaware of the disparity between their real and perceived online perceptions:
1. No guilt. There is no remorse about bullying a brand. It’s much easier to do because no one “gets hurt.”
2. The mob. Lots of other people are doing it. Whether they are the instigators with a real story or trolls making them up, it’s easy to find others who will join you.
3. Relative anonymity. Anonymity strips many people of fear. “No one will know if I say this” is the common feeling and easily overwhelms any feelings of restraint a person might normally have.
4. No accountability. Probably the most significant factor is the sheer lack of accountability in anything said in social media. Without accountability as a “natural check” on actions, you get an environment devoid of any punishment.
It’s easy to see how a company as proficient in traditional, one-way advertising—with its catchy radio jingles, touching TV commercials, glossy print ads, and Happy Meal movie tie-ins—as McDonald’s could underestimate the dark side of two-way, fully interactive, ultimately transparent social media marketing.
But what’s to prevent mere mortal companies like yours and mine from making these same mistakes? How can we avoid the online bullying, mob mentality, and generally ugly behavior of Internet trolls and anonymous haters?
Well, we may not be able to avoid it, but we can certainly do everything in our power to protect our brand image regardless of it, and that’s just what this chapter is all about.
The power, and peril, of social media is the ease with which merely dissatisfied consumers can quickly find their voice and turn into Determined Detractors. With a few mouse clicks, they can easily voice their displeasure with you or your brand.
For many, this experience of finding their voice, often for the first time, can be addictive. But even when it’s not, in general, the impact of consumer reviews is growing, and with that, the importance of monitoring negative reviews.
Let’s consider the scope of negative reviews, as well as the damage they can do, by this sampling of what should be disturbing statistics for all of us:
“67 percent of consumers say they would not buy a product if it had as few as 3 negative reviews.” (Source: Lightspeed Research)
“A high product rating increases the likelihood of purchase for 55 percent of consumers.” (Source: DigitalVisitor.com)
“Over 75 percent of review users reported that reviews have a significant influence on their purchase, and depending on the category, that number can be as large as 87 percent.” (Source: comScore)
“80 percent of those surveyed say that negative information they’ve read online has made them change their mind about purchasing a product or service someone recommended to them.” (Source: Cone Communications)
More and more often, reviews and ratings are becoming a significant factor in how, what, when, and even why consumers buy what they buy or, just as significantly, don’t buy what they go without.
While the casual consumer may write a review or two, tweet about a product, service, or experience or give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down on something they feel strongly about, there is a new breed of focused, purposeful, and increasingly powerful reviewers out there known as Determined Detractors.
These Determined Detractors come in three flavors: Hear Me’s, Reputation Terrorists, and Competitive Destroyers.
This particular group of Determined Detractors will deal mainly with customer service representatives. The fact that this sort of detractor group exists cements the need for customer service reps to be taught how to handle negative social media posts.
For whatever reason—poor customer service, a bad shopping experience, slow delivery time, whatever—these consumers are angry with a brand and simply want someone, anyone to know about it. Would it be great if the person they express their unhap-piness to was one of your own customer service representatives? Ideally, yes, but barring that, it could be anybody, anywhere, offline or on.
To that end they typically do try to reach out to the brand through traditional channels (e-mail, phone, “contact us” form), but for whatever reason, their issue is not resolved to their satisfaction. As a result, they choose to go public with their frustration and need to be acknowledged.
Not every Hear Me plea will go viral, but if or when one does, look out. Here is one case in which a Hear Me probably got a much larger audience than he intended, and the company in question had to do a lot more PR spin as a result: In September 2009, a popular blogger from TechnoBuffalo named “Jon” posted a video to YouTube about a terrible experience he had with Dell’s customer service. He detailed his treatment, and to date the video has been viewed over 48,000 times and still exists on YouTube.
As a result, the brand reached out to Jon and allowed him to join its Consumer Advisory Panel in 2010. Jon followed up his initial “Dear Dell” video with an update to let his viewers know how Dell had improved its service. This was a good outcome. Had it not been resolved as carefully, the incident could have been disastrous, and this Hear Me plea could have proven to be a lose-lose situation for Dell. Instead, the company heard about it, responded to it, and acted responsibly to resolve the situation, creating instead a win-win.
So how can you avoid gaining more Hear Me’s, or barring that, how can you deal with the ones you already have? There are three distinct ways you can move a Hear Me out of the Determined Detractor column and straight into the Satisfied Customer column instead:
1. Identify. First, have a constant monitoring “station” or team in place so that you can stay abreast of online chatter to help nip any problems in the bud. As you’ll see throughout this chapter, Determined Detractors increase in severity the longer their needs go unmet. Therefore, the best way to stop such detractors at the relatively harmless Hear Me level is to respond promptly and positively to try and solve their problem.
2. Isolate. Next, once you’ve identified a Hear Me, the next step is to remove the person’s messages from mainstream channels so that the discussion is no longer public. We call this “isolation” because we’re putting the detractor in a bracket where we are listening but the rest of the world isn’t necessarily privy to that conversation. Remember, the Hear Me’s just want to be heard, so once you identify them, the next step is to isolate them so that the conversation becomes much more personal, but far less public.
3. Solve. Finally, the conversation should become a one-on-one discussion of both the Hear Me’s problem, his or her needs, and ultimately, the solution to that problem.
You can see the progression of these three steps writ large in Jon’s story from above. First he was identified, likely after posting his “Dear Dell” video on YouTube. Next, he was isolated by being invited to participate with Dell on its Consumer Advisory Panel.
Finally, Jon’s problem was solved to the point where he felt compelled to go online and post another video updating the company’s solution. In short, he was “converted” from a decidedly Determined Detractor into a brand advocate.
What’s unique about folks in the Hear Me column is that, once their vocalizations have stopped and they’ve actually been listened to, they often become valuable fonts of wisdom as to how not to conduct customer service in the future.
The best thing you can do is turn a Hear Me into a They Satisfied Me Advocate. The worst you can do is consider the case closed without doing at least some type of “exit” interview to see how the problem could have been avoided in the first place.
Our second “branch” of Determined Detractors, Reputation Terrorists, fundamentally do not agree with a particular company or brand—its mission, products, or something else. This may be because they’ve had a bad experience with a brand or simply, irrationally, because they resent its existence.
Unlike Hear Me’s, who are basically out to resolve a personal problem with the company, Reputation Terrorists are personally out to defame, detract, or even destroy a company’s reputation, both online and off.
They are active, verbal, even purposeful, and like real terrorists, they wage “campaigns” designed to actively achieve their goals. These campaigns can be quite focused, intense, and effective.
As the name implies, Reputation Terrorists are far more purposeful about their “cause” than Hear Me’s, for whom the situation is far more personal. Reputation Terrorists don’t go away quite as easily as Hear Me’s, nor are they quite as easily satisfied.
Still, you can’t just throw your hands up in defeat, and there are ways to defend against Reputation Terrorists. In fact, the first line of offense against these Determined Detractors is frequently a strong defense:
1. Monitoring matters. To that end, find a way to constantly monitor online chatter to identify Reputation Terrorists before they take up arms. The longer the Reputation Terrorists fester over real or perceived slights, the stronger their resolve grows. By the time they become active campaigners, Reputation Terrorists become harder and harder to please. By addressing their concerns early through strong online awareness and chatter analysis, you can hopefully cut potential Reputation Terrorists off at the pass.
2. Apply preventive maintenance. If you do not, if you are truly “tardy to the party,” you will be made aware of the Reputation Terrorists through their actions, words, or constant complaints, and then hopefully a little counterprogramming can help. We’ve talked at length about how your advocates can help build and promote a brand, but here is a case in which they can often rush in to defend the brand as well. Reputation Terrorists don’t happen in a vacuum, and for every zealot who is out to hurt you, there are often several more who will rise to defend you. That is, if you have nurtured them carefully and created a brand worth defending. This is when the term “preventive maintenance” really comes into play because, honestly, you can’t ask brand advocates to defend you; it simply rings hollow. But they will defend you if you do all those things we’ve talked about in this book beforehand so that your “goodwill bank” has enough deposits to cover the solid work your brand defenders may do on your behalf.
3. Fight fire with facts. One of the primary weaknesses of Reputation Terrorists is that they often base their arguments on feelings versus facts. That is, they feel slighted and passionately and proactively slander you based on those hurt feelings. True, the longer they wage war against your reputation, the more organized they become, but regardless their battles are often fought on the emotional versus the rational battlefield. Therefore, when you’ve identified the Reputation Terrorists and homed in on what, exactly, their beef is with you, you can begin controlling the damage in the opposite direction: with facts over feelings. Do your homework, and get out in front of the damage control by responding with level heads and plenty of facts. For every piece of false information the Reputation Terrorists might post about your company, you must counter with sending two or more positive, factual pieces of information into the marketplace.
4. Clarity is critical. Finally, be proactive about clearly stating your position and making it known in the marketplace. The fact is, people will be people. They like to “take sides,” and the only way to come out a winner in the fight with Reputation Terrorists is simply to believe in your case and state it clearly. Remember, Reputation Terrorists are on a “mission” because they believe they are right, and they set about telling the world, or at least “their” world, how right they are. You must be just as right—in fact, you must be more right. You must stand above the fray and combat feelings with facts and confusion with clarity.
One of the most insidious and well-funded types of Determined Detractors are those known as “Competitive Destroyers.” As the name implies, these aren’t your average citizens or disgruntled consumers, but instead, they are active competitors who “act” like average citizens or disgruntled citizens with the express interest in tarnishing or all out destroying your brand image.
Rival brands often take small digs at one another through social media (or more often in advertising), but there are some “battles” that take that competition one step further.
Take Microsoft, for instance. You wouldn’t think that a power player, industry leader, and overall global titan would have to stoop to anything as low as competitive destruction, but that’s exactly what the company did in a botched campaign that went awry and lives in infamy as one of the more notable rivalry failures of all time.
Obviously, for top players in the technology game to stay on the top, they must keep an eye out on the competition. But actively sabotaging the competition is a tricky game that when, done wrong, can prove disastrous.
Everyone knows the stakes in smartphone technology, to say nothing of sales, are the highest of high. So when trying to find converts for the Windows Phone 8, Microsoft approached Twitter with the express intention of showing up one of its rivals, the Android, by asking for horror stories about its malware features.
Microsoft attempted to convince Droid users to switch to the new Windows phone by encouraging them to use the hashtag #DroidRage. Unfortunately, the campaign went terribly awry.
Almost instantly the plan backfired when Microsoft made the innocuous enough sounding request on Twitter: “Do you have an Android malware horror story? Reply with #DroidRage with your best/worst story, and we may have a get-well present for you.”1
Android fans proved to be both a loyal and vocal bunch, almost immediately taking over the hashtag and using it against the Windows phone and its problems with the smartphone, which sparked another hashtag, #WindowsRage.2
The drama was vocal, brutal, and blindingly swift. It is also a textbook case in how not to be a Competitive Destroyer.
Are you making the same mistake by failing to monitor online social chatter or, just as bad, ignoring it? In this next section, we will discuss ways to counteract all three of these Determined Detractors and protect your precious brand image in this most transparent and vocal of times.
As we’ve seen in this chapter, the damage of negative perception on your brand can be increasingly severe. With so much going on online, the longer a negative perception exists without a strong offense or defense, the more likely people are to (a) see it and (b) believe it.
Here are some tips to help you protect your brand image by getting proactive in the media age.
Not every tweet is the end of the world, and not every blog post is going to go viral. Not all Determined Detractors are created equal. Some have a big audience and cast a wide net, so when they speak, thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of people will listen. Others have a compelling message that gets picked up by those who choose to believe it.
Others are simply tempests in teapots. In other words, they may tweet once or twice about a lousy experience in your store, and a few people may read or pay attention to their tweets, but they will then quickly move on with their lives. So it’s critical that you not send out your brand’s equivalent of the National Guard every time the chatter grows dark. Take the following variables into account first:
How much traction is the message getting? If a negative tweet never gets retweeted, if a negative Facebook posting gets only one or two Likes, if a negative blog post doesn’t get any comments, it’s likely to not have very much traction. If, on the other hand, the reaction is too overwhelming to be ignored, be grateful that you found it in enough time to control the damage.
How big is the Determined Detractor’s reach? Again, not all Determined Detractors are created equal. Some are just dabbling in the art of reputation terrorism, while others are quite serious and have amassed quite a reach. Before going into spin mode, it’s important to determine if a simple e-mail response from the customer service department can quell a coming storm, or if it will take calling in the “big guns” and taking your case directly to the marketplace.
How sustained is the attack? A random tweet, a frustrated Facebook post, even a rambling blog post can all be the start, or the end, of a prolonged attack. It’s important to determine if the online chatter is a one- or even two-time event or if it’s a more sustained voicing of frustration likely to go on until the matter is resolved.
You can’t reinvent the wheel every time customers take to Yelp to complain about slow room service or the proverbial—or literal! — fly in their soup. In this completely transparent age of social media that has given all consumers a voice, it is nearly inevitable that some negative chatter will occur to varying degrees for every company at some point.
If you have an “Escalation Plan” in place, you can categorically face each challenge in a clear, measured, and proactive way. For instance, with such a plan you can respond to X amount of tweets or Facebook Likes or blog post, and so on, with a specific chain of actions that is an appropriate response. So, for example, if it’s a fairly minor complaint in your user forum, or a scathing product review on Amazon.com, you know that you can do A, B, and C to resolve the situation because it’s worked before and it will work again. Also, if the attack escalates to a personal blog full of venting about your product or if there are multiple bashings in multiple forums, you can do D, E, and F to resolve the situation.
It’s critical to understand which category you’re dealing with as well: Hear Me’s, Reputation Terrorists, or Competitive Destroyers. Why? Aren’t they all bad? Well, true, none of them are good, but some are worse than others, and all require a different strategy to overcome. For instance, you don’t need to bring out the heavy artillery when dealing with a simple Hear Me, so why bother?
By the same token, if you don’t bother working consistently and persistently to counteract the deleterious effects done by a Reputation Terrorist, you’ll never get the job done. So knowing what you’re up against is one of the first steps in knowing how to combat him or her.
Remember these three letters: ABM. They stand for Always Be Monitoring—monitoring your online chatter, being aware of your “real” versus your “perceived” position in the marketplace, is always going to be your best line of defense, and offense, against all of these Determined Detractors.
After all, if you can move fast enough to resolve situations or, better yet, prevent certain situations from occurring in the first place, you will steal the thunder from all of these Determined Detractors and leave them with nothing else to do but praise your name. Or at least not smear it all over social media.
Finally, as a wise man once said, “The truth will out.” The marketplace is, for the most part, self-policing. In other words, if you are a good company with a solid brand, stellar performance, great service, and a congenial online disposition, consumers will generally “shout down” those detractors who are way off base in trying to tear you down.
Even the most unreasonable consumers know that not every retailer, restaurant, hotel, or car dealership is going to be firing on all cylinders every minute of every hour of every day. Shipments do go missing, soup does get cold, the ice machine breaks in the middle of the night, and service trucks break down. For some Determined Detractors, these occurrences are enough for a company to be forever smeared. But for most, it’s the cost of doing business in the real world. If you do enough of the right things often enough, the marketplace will generally absorb, even ignore, and occasionally even shout down those Determined Detractors who, for whatever reason, turn a bad consumer experience into all-out warfare. While it’s not enough simply to let the marketplace even itself out, it is a factor that is generally working in your favor around the clock.
In summary, the best power of protection is often merely in good policing. I can’t imagine any company in this day and age NOT being aware of their real versus perceived online image, but the fact is many companies are hesitant about dipping their toes into those waters simply for fear of discovery.
But you must know what you’re dealing with in order to either (a) capitalize on the good chatter and/or (b) minimize or neutralize the bad. Doing anything less is simply irresponsible when there are so many free or near-free tools to help you monitor your brand awareness night and day.
The fact is, in a backhanded way, Determined Detractors can do most companies a solid favor. How? By making them aware of very real problems that exist in the quality chain of their organizations. Where there is smoke, there is generally fire. You can’t merely discount all Determined Detractors as crackpots, crazies, or shut-ins with nothing better to do.
If you are putting out repeated brush fires that often come down to the same sources—bad services, inferior quality, lack of consistency, mismanagement, and so on—don’t just consider the source but consider the problem as well.
As we’ll see in Chapter 13 on customer service solutions, there is no greater satisfaction than turning Determined Detractors into Brand Advocates. And the lessons you learn in turning a (highly) dissatisfied customer into not only a satisfied one but one who is willing to voluntarily go to bat for you online and off will make it even easier to recruit new advocates out of satisfied customers!
No one wants to deal with an irate, verbal, and persistent detractor, but whether learning to avoid these types altogether or doing damage control to counteract their presence once they’ve got you in their sights, you and your brand will grow stronger as a result.