While an increased online presence opens your brand up to more leads, it also fully exposes the feedback your company receives. While regular complaints are important to deal with, complaints on social media can be extremely damaging to your company image. And unlike traditional complaints, those on social media can be more troublesome. Why? Only 30 percent of customers share positive reviews on social media but 45 percent share negative reviews. Promotional Consultant Today shares these tips for managing negative social media reviews.

First, realize that not all complaints on social media will come directly to your profiles. Less than three percent of customers directly mention brands on Twitter but, make no mistake, your customers are having conversations about you. Monitor and search for people talking about your brand, but don't expect all will come through your sites.

Respond immediately to show your concern and care for the customer. Failure to respond leads to a 15-percent increase in the churn rate for existing customers. The faster you are able to connect with a customer who has left a negative response, the more likely you are to keep the customer. Quickly fix the problem and apologize.

Here are some other ways to manage a negative comment on social media:

  • Acknowledge a negative tweet as soon as possible by directly replying with a message such as, "We're sorry to hear that and hope we can remedy the issue soon."

  • If there is a serious problem, say you will Direct Message the customer to discuss the issue further.

  • In the direct message, provide an email address of support personnel. Giving an actual person's email address, rather than a generic one, shows that a human being will be taking care of the problem quickly and personally.

Negative feedback will happen, and when it does, it will be out in the open for the world to see. However, if you respond quickly and solve the problem, you can give customers the satisfaction they are seeking and leave them with a positive experience.

Source: Ben Green is the director of operations at Oktopost, but also helps out with marketing as well. Prior to joining the Oktopost team, he built the lead demand activities for Nolio, playing a major role in developing the company's inside sales department.