Social Media - Middle East

Dealing with a Social Media Disaster – Crisis Communications

So your company has a problem, its fallen foul of new media platforms.  You made one single customer mistake due to a misplaced administrative document, one of your sales reps was less than polite to a customer or in some way your company has managed to tick someone off.  So what happens now – Here is one of the problems we recently had to put right for a customer in Dubai.

Caller – “Yes is that H2O New Media”

Steve – “Yes this is us, how can I help you”

Caller – “In understand that you deal with social media, we have a disgruntled customer that purchased a property from us last year and defaulted on his deposit due to a clerical error on our part, now he is posting hundreds of posts all over the web saying that our company is dishonest and rips people off”

Steve – “Ok, how can I help you”

Caller – “Well how do we stop it”

Steve – “Quite simply you can’t, but I can help you implement a crisis communications plan to deal with the problem”

Caller – “How much does that cost?”

Steve – “Let me come and see you, it really depends on how much trouble you are really in”

It’s a fact that along with the liberalisation of Social Media in the Middle East it brings with it a huge opportunity for Crisis Communications Management – either to appease disgruntled customers, reduce the impact of a very angry customers that are using the internet to voice their opinion on possibly hundreds of blogs – or in the case of the sophisticated user someone that is using search engine optimisation and its various tips and tricks to put your company into the toilet.  

Generally there are four major ways to approach crisis communications in the online world – here is a step by step guide.

Implement a media monitoring service for Online and Social Media

This helps a company catch the problem early, if you don’t know that there is a problem until your company website is on page 5 of Google whilst rants, raves and complaints fill up the first four pages you will have a serious problem.  The cost of online media monitoring will pail into insignificance in comparison.  

If you have a problem open one on one dialog immediately

Just like any crisis in the media, the first and most effective way to stop the flow of negative comments about your company is to open one on one dialog with your customer.  Speak to the customer, on the telephone and by email and ensure that you open a dialogue channel assuring the customer that you will come to an amicable agreement.

Consider Implementing a Customer Service Portal

In the case of multiple customer complaints you need to be seen to be doing something proactive to rectify the problem by building your own complaints or customer services portal prior to it becoming a real problem.  If there is an official website for complaints it may reduce the need users to create their own or start posting all over the internet.  Of course your customer service portal needs to be both operational and effective otherwise it can heighten the situation.

Get an expert on the job

Getting a social media expert into either advise you on your actions or help counter act the problem by implementing counter statements or implementing an effective search optimisation strategy will save you both time and money.  We don’t care who it is – but you should make sure they understand what they are doing and that they have done it before.

If you need to go public

If it gets to the point where it is really impacting your business then you can consider going public with a statement explaining how you are rectifying the issue both on and offline, as well as starting to take legal action by implementing a cease or desist notice with the offender.  However if they are in another country or are really mad it could make the situation worse! Tread Carefully !!