No brand wants to experience bad publicity, especially if it’s online, because online news travels a lot faster and can do a lot of damage pretty quickly.

The good news is that negative online feedback from customers doesn’t mean you’re about to lose 20 more of your clients, it simply means that you might need to relook at a few of your internal processes in order to avoid the same problem in future.

Bad online publicity can’t be ignored though so below are seven ways to better deal with a customer’s online outburst.

1. Don’t ignore the feedback. If you really want to make matters worse, ignoring a bad review or an online complaint will do just that. Customers want to be acknowledged and a brand that pretends it doesn’t see the feedback will seem like a brand that simply doesn’t care.
2. Don’t delete the feedback. This point goes hand in hand with the above. Deleting a comment or review is even worse than ignoring it. By getting rid of the negative evidence you’ll be coming across as a brand that’s trying to ignore their problems.
3. Ramp up the turnaround time. The longer a negative review hangs around online, the more people will see it. By attending to a complaint sooner rather than later you can put a fire out before it spreads and affects other customers’ opinions about you.
4. Show some empathy. Talk to your customer as a person and show that you understand how they’re feeling.
5. Apologize. Before you dive into a solution, apologize to the customer. Not only will this potentially help you win the customer back but it shows other customers who might’ve also seen the review that you are a brand that cares.
6. Take it offline. While you do want to show that you are attending to the problem, it’s best to not discuss the entire issue with the customer online. Rather ask them to send through their details so that you can get in touch with them directly.
7. Learn from the experience. A negative review is a good thing. It gives you the chance to improve how you do business so make sure that you learn from it by sharing the feedback with your employees and making the relevant changes.