The British are notoriously bad at complaining at least to the shop/restaurant/insurance provider who have caused them grievance.  However, we’ll happily complain to our friends, family and colleagues, and bad reviews travel much faster than good ones.

We buy more and more online and rely on the reviews we can find so easily to influence our decisions. After booking a recent holiday I have firsthand experience of the number of negative reviews on Trip Advisor – and I wonder how many of them actually mentioned anything to the hotel manager? Most of the complaints are minor and could be sorted out if the relevant people know about them at the time.

With the rise of blogging and social media it is imperative that you, as a company, are on top of the channels where people could be talking about you. It is equally important that you are then seen to respond to comments – positive or negative. It is so easy now to take to Twitter to write a 140 character rant about the service we have received. And, we expect a response. If you are already using, or considering, social media for your business here are a few tips on how to manage conversations and comments:

• Search for your business name regularly on Twitter and find out if people are talking about you. Retweet any praise and thank the person for their comments, Twitter is about conversations, these people buy your product/service – find out what they like and what can be improved. By making your company approachable you are building your brand personality, be friendly.

• Search Twitter for keywords linking to your business and join in conversations, keep your tweets friendly and not sale related, there is opportunity for this as the conversation progresses.

• Respond to negative tweets, it is easy to take the matter away from the public eye, ask them to direct message you and provide further information. This takes it off everyone’s timeline and allows you to deal with the matter privately.

• Apologise, sometimes this can be all someone wants. Avoid coming up with excuses, these can make things worse: I once found a long, thin piece of plastic in a flapjack, when I sent it back to the manufacturer I was offered a £5 voucher as an apology. This was fine – I didn’t need to know that the plastic was from a brush, used to sweep the walls under the tray of unwrapped flapjacks... Less is more!

• Facebook is a more public forum. If you receive a comment always respond, say ‘thank you’. Never delete a comment, unless it is offensive, this can lead to more comments which you can’t control.

• Check your profile regularly people won’t expect a response straight away but a problem that is left to fester it becomes a much bigger issue.

• Search Google for your business, look on blogs that cover your business.

• If your company appears on Trip Advisor, or a similar review site, then respond to comments, use them as feedback and train your staff appropriately to stop it happening again. It is very easy to dwell on the negative - don’t forget to pass on the positive comments too; happy staff are more productive!

Most importantly ensure you have a full social media strategy set up before you start, ensure you understand your product and audience before you start. If you need some help give us a call on 01204 699566 or contact us on twitter @absoluteagency.

*image from Fawlty Towers property of the BBC