I’m gonna go social on you
What happens if you’re a customer and you don’t get your way? In the age of social media you terrorize, apparently. At least that’s what happened to my company recently. That’s right – we had a social media terrorist attack.
I’m gonna go social on you
I work for an insurance company. We’re in the business of protecting the quality of people’s lives. We do this by restoring their cars and homes to the state prior to the incident that caused them to file a claim. We try to provide them with the best customer service we can throughout this process. We don’t send our cars to the cheapest repairers, but rather to repairers that we know can do a good job. One of our customers recently wasn’t too happy with this process and really let us know about it.
The customer in question was getting his car repaired with us. For some reason he didn’t like the repairer that was going to fix up his car (he was getting a lifetime guarantee on the repairs, mind you!). He instead elected to take a cash payment for the repairs. Unfortunately, he didn’t agree with the amount of money the repairs would cost and was therefore unhappy with the cash settlement.
If you’ve followed so far, we’ve done everything right: we tried to fix the car, the customer said ‘no’, so we tried to pay him cash based on what the actual repair would cost and he still said ‘no.’
The next thing we knew, we received a letter (or email, rather) of demands. Unless we pay the cash amount that he thought was reasonable, he’d blast us all over the Internet. He wanted to falsely accuse us of doing wrong to get his way. He was gonna go social on us!
How to respond, or “we don’t negotiate with terrorists”
Let’s face it – if you’ve done nothing wrong, then you have no reason to negotiate with a social media terrorist. (If you have done something wrong, then you need much more than just this blog post to help you… I suggest getting some legal advice, my friend. Also, you should probably rethink your business model. Being dodgy won’t get you too far in the end…)
If someone does try to go social on you, here’s a few tips I think you should try.
Talk to them
If you hear about the threat directly like we did, then try talking to this customer first. They’re angry, but at least they’re open to a conversation, or you’d never have received the warning email. Perhaps you can reason with them and explain why you did what you did. Appeal to whatever logic they have left. See if you’re really the problem or if there’s something else going on in their life that’s causing this frustration.
Get someone senior to talk to them
Escalate to a manager. In our case, our CEO got involved and was happy to calmly explain our processes to this customer. People like to feel important. If the CEO is talking to you, you feel like you’re getting somewhere and you’re less likely to live up to your terrorist threats.
Scope out the places you think they’re planning their attack
Check all the websites where you think he may strike and monitor the rest. If the terrorist talks, you need to be there to respond with the truth immediately. Set up an immediate Google Alert so you get notified if something comes up.
Be rational and calm and stick to the facts
If your terrorist does post some things you don’t agree with, get involved. Respond calmly, rationally and factually. Staying silent may convince others that you’re guilty. If a particular forum doesn’t allow you to respond or refuses to publish your comment (happened to us several times), Google Sidewiki will be your best friend. You can state your side of the story using Sidewiki, which may not reach too many users, but it’s the best you can do in that situation. Or, try contacting the webmaster with the facts to try to convince them that you really do need to give your side of the story.
Know when to stop
Sometimes engaging someone in the public forum just adds fuel to the fire. The social media terrorist may enjoy the spotlight too much and make up more lies. The last thing you want is for the situation to blow up out of proportion and start showing up in searches for your brand. If you don’t get rational responses, then leave. It will only get worse from there. (Trust me… We’ve been there too…)
Don’t wait for an attack – Stage a preemptive strike
There’s no 100% guaranteed way to disarm a social media terrorist. If someone really wants to go social on you, they will. All you can do is be ready for them. Engage your customers enough so that they don’t resort to social media terrorism in the first place. Create a blog or a forum on your site so if they do go social, maybe they’ll do it on your turf and you can at least respond on your terms. If you build it, they will come…
In our case, we actually got somewhere in the end. Despite his threats, our disgruntled customer hasn’t done anything dramatic. Talking did work in this case and hopefully this customer will agree to just have his repairs done and get his car back ASAP. It’s taken a high level of attention, but it’s worth it in the end if it means this customer is now happy and his car is restored back to its original condition. After all, as an insurance company, that’s our job, come rain or shine, right?
