Managing your brand online: Dealing with complaints sites

Customers have been posting their complaints online since the conception of the Internet and Twitter and Facebook have enabled a generation of time sensitive internet users to voice their service experiences. But what do customers expect when they post their detailed gripes on dedicated complaint sites such as Get Satisfaction and Ripoff Report? And how can those responsible for an organisation’s brand work with these complaints aggregators?

Why do customers use complaints aggregators?

Search Engine Optimised

Many of these sites are search engine optimised, which means they will appear high on Google Search results when a user either searches a brand name or search terms such as [brand name] + complaints. As more and more customers post comments on these sites their search engine placement improves. One of the best examples for this is TripAdivsor. Have you ever tried finding a hotel online and have always found TripAdvisor in the top five links every time? Go to Google and try searching for your favourite hotel.

Why tell one person?

People feel part of a community when online and want to tell other people within the community about any issues they’ve had, just like you used to tell your neighbours and friends. Why write one letter or email to a company when you can publicise deficiencies to hundreds of people? This causes problems for PR teams, who are having to learn about online reputation and sentiment. More brand damage can be done online than in a small article in a daily newspaper.

Customers expect a resolution to their problem

The biggest problem for customer service professionals is that customers expect a reply to their post from the company in question; I have even seen customers leave account numbers on external forums. Many of these sites have company pages which some customers believe are managed by the actual company. One dispute relating to these ‘company pages’ is between Get Satisfaction and a SaaS software provider called 37Signals. 37Signals commented in their blog post Get Satisfaction, or Else on how they felt customers would get confused because they expected direct support from the company.

Some examples of complaint aggregators

Complaints Board

As the name suggests this is a complaints board where customers can post their complaints and receive feedback from other customers in relation to their issue. Readers of the website are able to vote on whether they agree with the complaint or not. Visit Complaints Board.

Complaints Community

Complaints Community is a UK based website, but I am sure it has plans to grow abroad. Unlike most websites it also publishes complaints on Twitter, forcing organisations to deal with the complaint on its site. It allows customers and companies to discuss the issue through its private messaging system.

Get Satisfaction

This takes a different approach from some of the other sites featured here as it accepts praise, product improvement ideas and also acts as a knowledge base. Visit Get Satisfaction.

Complaints.com

Customers are able to post their feedback online through an easy to use (if somewhat outdated) interface and companies can respond to the complaint. Visit Complaints.com.

Ripoff Report

This site is a cross between a blog and a complaints forum. It has been going for over ten years and has had over eight billion visitors during that time. Visitors can post their issues online; not just bad experiences but also fraudulent activity, such as phishing and telephone slamming. Visit Ripoff Report.

Customer Service Scoreboard

Customers post both positive and negative comments about a company which are used to generate a ratings scoreboard for the company in question. Unlike most of the other sites it doesn’t allow companies to engage with unhappy customers and assist in resolving their problem. Visit Customer Service Scoreboard.

Plebble

Plebble invites negative and positive feedback using a smiley based ratings system (an angry devil signifies the most negative). As well as publishing a comments section it posts statistics alongside the company profile which allow readers to see the company’s customer ratings trend. Plebble also incorporates customer feedback from sites such as ReviewCentre.com (not included here due to its bias towards products).

MeasuredUp

This site allows customers to post both traditional, written posts and video. Somewhat like Get Satisfaction, it allows customers to ‘create a support ticket’. Get Satisfaction does make it clear that the company in question is not connected to its site, but MeasuredUp does not, which could increase customer dissatisfaction. Visit MeasuredUp.

Pissed Consumer

This site’s slogan is “Tell the world. Be heard”. An interesting feature of this website is that it uses sub-domains, i.e. [brandname].pissedconsumer.com, which means it scores well on search engine rankings. Companies can’t engage with customers to resolve issues. Visit Pissed Consumer.

How popular are complaints sites?

Complaints aggregation site visitor numbers are falling

Those companies not included in the chart either have insufficient visitor numbers or are not tracked by Compete.com. As you can see from the chart, visitor numbers have been declining over the past year. This may be due to several reasons:

• growth of Twitter and Facebook; Generations X and Y are more likely to post complaints using quicker and easier media than complaint sites
• increased competition among the complaints sites
• companies are actually listening to customer feedback and improving their products and processes
• companies are becoming better at resolving customer complaints, therefore removing the need for the customer to be more vocal about the complaint
• companies are becoming better at managing their online reputation
• less people are complaining as they are better informed and make better purchases in the first place

How can you manage complaint aggregators?

1. first and foremost ensure that customers can complain to your organisation easily; don’t hide your help pages. If you use a knowledge base ensure that you add an FAQ telling customers how they can complain and that you appreciate their feedback.
2. you could simply ignore these websites and let the complaints build up across the internet. This option may be not the best suggestion if you want to protect your brand online.
3. choose one or two sites and respond to customers who post feedback. Focusing on a couple of the sites will enable you to understand how to use the sites properly and you’ll be able to build a relationship with the website owner. To find out which sites you may work with, Google your brand name or [brand name] + complaint to see which sites come top of your search results.
4. develop your own customer forum. Possible platform providers include Get Satisfaction, Lithium, Helpstream, Jive, Ning and SocialGo. This allows you to manage the conversations with your customers. Don’t be afraid to air your dirty laundry in public — all companies make mistakes — and show that you respond to vital feedback. Customers look for transparency from the companies they deal with. Encouraging online discussions will help you build your reputation for trustworthiness.
5. work with your marketing team. Buy keywords on Google Adwords. These are the adverts which appear at the top or to the right of Google search results. So you could purchase the term [brand name] is crap (excuse the language but this is often what customers search for). You can then produce an advert to direct customers to your internal forum or to a landing page asking for people to give feedback.
6. work with your web team to ensure that your help section is optimised for major search engine keywords relating to complaints. If you listen to your customers, speak to your call centre agents or run reports on why people complain, you’ll be able to develop your SEO programme around complaint keywords.
7. Use ‘listening tools’ such as Radian6, UberVu or even free tools such as Board Tracker to monitor forum postings relating to your company. Find customers complaining about your brand and engage with them.

So is this the future of complaining?

In my opinion, no — you can see the declining visitor numbers — but it is imperative that you do not ignore it and remember that these negative posts will never disappear (unless the website closes). Customers will post their feedback online and these sites will grow if organisations do not listen to their customers and fix ongoing issues.

What are your thoughts?

Do you engage with your customers in any forums? Perhaps you think that these sites are good for customers? Post your comments below.