How to Hug Your Haters

As customer service takes a critical position in organizations because of the transparency of social media, more and more, teams have to learn to embrace angry comments, bad reviews and public relations nightmares.

I recently had the privilege of hearing Jay Baer talk about his forthcoming book, Hug your Haters. As Jay explains “Customer service is not a spectator sport.”

So how do you hug your haters? Those nasty villains who spam your Facebook page, complain on third-party review sites and generally make things difficult?

How to Hug Your Haters

Here were Jay’s tips:

1. Recognize, then empathize: There’s a formula for making people feel that their needs are being met. At the heart of it, people want to be understood and heard. So it’s important to recognize they are in pain (even if it seems ridiculous to you) and then address the issue.
2. Reply only twice, then walk away: Don’t get sucked into the vortex of negativity. Particularly in public spaces, like social media, show you care and want to remedy the situation. But if the other party wants to turn it into a war of wills, back away.
3. Be everywhere fast: The average company takes 44 hours to reply to an email. But Jay’s research showed that speed of resolution is the most important factor in customer service satisfaction over the phone.
   And finally, remember that Haters only hate what they can see. Often explaining a situation to them can make them understand there are behind-the-scenes things happening and calm them down.

How do you hug your haters? Tweet us @ahaval and enter to win a free hour consultation with Ahava Leibtag on any five pages of content.