Social Media Response Plan Step 3: What Should You Say?

This is the third post in a series about creating your social media response plan. We've covered Step 1 - Who Will Respond? and Step 2 - When to Respond.

Imagine you have completed steps 1 and 2 of your Social Media Response Plan.  You have two trusted members of your agency staff who are monitoring the web for mentions of your agency. They have some practice responding to positive comments and questions posted on your Facebook page.

Now imagine a client posts a complaint about your service on your insurance agency's Facebook page. You know you need to respond quickly. What should you say? 

It helps to know your goals for the interaction. Don’t fall victim to the mindset that you must prove your point.  You may never be able to satisfy the person making the complaint.  Think about the people who will read this interaction now or in the future. First, maintain your professionalism. Second, get the conversation offline as quickly as possible. 

Steps to create a sincere response to a social media complaint:

1. Acknowledge the person's pain. From their perspective, they have been treated unfairly. If the post is mean, pretend they were more polite. (Caveat - if they used profanity, threats or other obscene language, remove the post immediately.) Remember, your goal is to maintain professionalism. You must be the "bigger person." You might start your response with, "I'm sorry to hear about this," "I can understand your frustration" or "Thank you for letting us know." 

2. Try to move the conversation to a private channel. You may need to get more information from them, so this is a good opportunity to move the interaction off of your Facebook page. After your words of acknowledgement, say something like, "I'd like to help - can you send me your details in a private Facebook message?" Or you may have an email address you can offer them.  We ask people to send private details to ContactUs@StateAuto.com.  As an agency, you may know the person and not need any additional information. In this case, you could let them know that you prefer not to respond with any detail on Facebook to protect their privacy. "I'd like to help.  I'll give you a call in the next few minutes." 

3. Use your normal, human voice. No one likes to feel like they're being given the "party line." Talk to this person like you're actually talking to them. Use their name. "Sharon/Mrs. Smith, I can understand your frustration." Use contractions. If you would say "don't" over the phone, write "don't" in your response so you sound more natural.

4. Tell them what you’ll do next. Make "I'd like to help" more authentic by telling them what you plan to do. "I'll watch for your email." "Thanks for letting me know - I'll get this moving and find out what's going on." "I'll get this to the right person to look into the problem." When I ask people to send me details at ContactUs@StateAuto.com, I tell them that I'll watch for their email. Of course, make sure you can do what you tell them you’ll do.  

5.  Identify yourself. Let them know who you are. You can give just your first name and the first letter of your last name if you prefer. 

6. Stay calm. No matter what, do not become defensive. Bring in others from your team to help you right away. They can be a sounding board as you plan your response. You may also need someone to listen to you vent your own frustration. 

Use these tips as a guide to create some sample responses to help you when the time comes. Get others on your team involved to help brainstorm professional yet sincere responses.