Please Login or Register
Advanced search

What should an organization do when they find negative things being written about them online?

LindaM's picture
Submitted by LindaM on Tue, 08/31/2010 - 2:21pm
Printer-friendly versionPrinter-friendly version

I find the Open and Honest approach to be admirable.
You will learn just as much, if not more, about your company and your customers from their comments about what they don't like about your organization or product, as you would from their praise.  Praise is just easier to swallow.
That being said you don't want your brand to take too much of a hit…so the first step is admitting that you would like to work towards making your product better and encourage constructive feedback.

After reading Balwani's (2009) "10 of the Smartest Brands in Social Media" I found Starbucks "My Starbucks idea" tool ingenious because it gives their customers a voice not only for praise, but also constructive criticism, new ideas, and free market research. 
"Lesson: Thinking of ways to build your company are great, but directly asking your consumers what they want, is better. Acting on that information and doing it publicly is key to the success of this campaign." (Balwani, 2009)

I agree with you

Pamela H's picture
Submitted by Pamela H on Tue, 08/31/2010 - 2:53pm.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. If people are going to be out there talking about you, you might as well join in and give them something good to talk about. I think that customers react strongly to companies that act as if they don't care about the customer. In this new era, those companies will fail (no matter how successful they were in past). I believe this goes for all types of companies in every sector. Last week a lot of people wrote about how libraries need to become more customer-focused and I think that is true across the board!

While I do think Starbucks is

TracyGuza's picture
Submitted by TracyGuza on Tue, 08/31/2010 - 3:11pm.

While I do think Starbucks is brilliant about transparency in many ways, there is a blog out there maintained by Starbucks employees as well. The content is both positive and negative and I get the feeling that the blog is run without much if any corporate interference.

Here is the link:

http://starbucksgossip.typepad.com/

This blog is a sounding board for baristas flummoxed by new drink making procedures and also an up to date link to any Starbucks related news. Back in 2008 during the huge Seattle corporate office layoffs, this blog was a dark place, but it seems to have returned to normal. And frankly, whether this is mandated by headquarters or not, it is another fine example of an interesting use of social media to paint a picture of a brand's personality.

Thanks for the link to the

LindaM's picture
Submitted by LindaM on Tue, 08/31/2010 - 6:11pm.

Thanks for the link to the blog.

The "English Professor ejected from Starbucks over multigrain bagel order" sounds like an Onion headline...really made my day.

Starbucks is one of those companies that I can't support personally but have kept an eye on for marketing techniques.

This blog reminds me of a Yahoo Group (do people still use Yahoo Groups?) way back when I worked for Borders in my late teens comprised of real workers and real dirt about the company.

I do have to say that,

jrogers's picture
Submitted by jrogers on Thu, 09/02/2010 - 9:07am.

I do have to say that, although praise might be easier to accept, criticism is a lot easier to give. I have worked in restaurants for years, and I have to say that without a shadow of doubt that complaints are 1) really easy to give and way more prevalent than the person who goes out of her or his way to praise, and 2) stick in the head of managers and owners much more than compliments.

Something about an opinion box (be it literal or figurative or electronic) brings out the negative critic in a lot of folks.

Studies have shown that most

meredithfarkas's picture
Submitted by meredithfarkas on Sat, 09/04/2010 - 6:47am.

Studies have shown that most people will not comment unless they have received particularly awful service or particularly wonderful service. This is why consistently doing a good job often doesn't garner praise, but a single mistep will garner plenty of criticism. On the other hand, when we go above and beyond to create for people an experience that exceeds their expectations, chances are good that they will comment on that too.

Yep.  If you have a really

LindaM's picture
Submitted by LindaM on Sun, 09/05/2010 - 10:49am.

Yep.  If you have a really awful experience, even if you don't complain to the company you will probably tell anyone who's willing to listen and in the age of social networking that can be a whole lot of people.

Jennifer (jrogers), it must

mmccormack's picture
Submitted by mmccormack on Sun, 09/05/2010 - 3:20pm.

Jennifer (jrogers), it must be due to the fact that opinion boxes (and online posts) can be used anonymously, so it allows the "critic" to voice a complaint without the possibility of having any kind of confrontation. If a person wants to "flame" or to criticize harshly there's no possibility of a face-to-face encounter for having done so, no repercussions for the person complaining whatsoever. I think our culture trains us to be very critical, and I am not just referring to "the culture of perfect" of libraries, but to our whole media landscape in general. You can't but a pack of gum in a grocery store without being informed of who looks great in a bikini and who doesn't, or who went barefoot into a bathroom, and so on. Of course the same is true on TV and online. I think it trains us to view others negatively and to pass judgment on people for just being fallible human beings. It almost seems to be like an addiction for some people.

Obviously there is deserved criticism. I just think we are exposed to too much of the other stuff these days, and it's making some of us into snobs and others even more insecure than they already are just for being imperfect human beings.

 “Criticism often reveals much more about the critic than the matter being addressed.” (Simpson, 2004)

Simpson, J. (2004, October 05). Surviving the culture of criticism. Ministry Perspectives, (252).

Syndicate content