As the great Taylor Swift once sang, "Haters gonna Hate, Hate, Hate", funny as it is, even Brands have to bear a customer or two's brunt online. They can come in the form of honest long form write ups or a snarky comment. They can also be fake complaints planted by your 'industry well-wishers'! But one thing is for sure, there’s just no escaping a slight or a scathing negative comment; especially Social Media complaint.

Here are a few interesting tid-bits about how consumers reach out online to brands with their complaints. Did You Know?

• 17.4 % of consumers complain to brands using Social Media on a weekly basis.
• 32.8 % of brands never offer a response to social media complaints.
• 289 Million Complaints are left unanswered by the brand.

Why do Customers now use Social Media to make their complaints to the brand?

• Social Media provides consumers with the most convenient platform to communicate their concerns.
• Social media provides consumers with a sense of empowerment.
• Brands showcased on Social Media give Consumers high expectations about brands.

What should a Brand be doing to counter these complaints?

We say – Take it SERIOUSLY & OWN IT!

Complaints are a lot like a little wound. If you ignore, it will fester & spread... unless & until you choose to apply a medicine and help it heal. Handling customer complaints should be a similar task. When you as brand are faced by a complaint on social media, consider the concern of the consumer, and take the next appropriate action of redressal.

To put it simply, here's how to deal with haters on Social Media:

• Build a reputation on social media for listening to your consumers.
• If need be, create a separate Social Media Handle or a Page as the brand's virtual 'Customer Help Desk'. A nifty tip if you want an effective customer complaint management system in place.
• Differentiate between Genuine Customer Concerns & Fake Complaints.
• If they are fake comments planted to make your brand look bad online, tackle it online itself. Reach out with facts like 'Registration Number, Service Token, etc.' & keep following up. And when they do not reply to your approaches, your fanbase too will know it was a badly planned ruse.
• Tackle genuine concerns with a help of a little creativity & a lobby of social media support.
• Aim to respond to complaints within an hour’s time.
• Enable your staff by giving them the license to use their initiative to solve the issue at hand.

With this a brand can even transform this potentially harmful complaint into a positive experience for the brand & the consumers!

Let's take a peek into a few brands' 'Social Media Redressal' tactics to give you better understanding:

• JetBlue
  JetBlue use Twitter as the platform for Consumer Redressal and have an impressive response time of 10 Minutes. They encourage the Social Media Experts to respond with a view to add value & connect with customers, which keeps organic & natural. This makes the Brand look they are going an extra mile for their customers and in turn affirms their reputation among them.
• Dell
  The company have an appointed ‘Listening Czar’ responsible for the overall integration of Dell’s social media support offering.
  The company now employ a team of 70+ social media customer service officers operating from a state of the art “Social Media Listening Command Center“, managing up to 25,000 social media interactions per day.
• KLM Airlines
  KLM's social media team now consists of a dedicated team of 200+ employees who monitor the airlines social media channels to provide 24/7 support

In the age of Social Media, it becomes imperative for a Brand to not only showcase themselves on the platforms, but to in fact leverage the power of these very platforms to kindle a ‘2 way dialogue’ with consumers.