Before the social media age, organisations could control, to an extent,
what was said about them. Customers could write to newspapers, but
often what seemed a major issue for the customer, was not seen that way
by the newspaper editors. Customers who may have had negative
experiences had little access to other customers, who may also have had
similar experiences. That has all changed, and it poses a challenge on
both a personal and organisational level.
On a personal level, we tend to like having control over our lives and
experiences. We like certainty, knowing that actions we take will have
predictable outcomes. If you are responsible for managing your
organisation’s social media activity, you may already realise that you have
control over what you publish and comment on, but no control over what
comes back in return. That is disconcerting.
When you are posting or responding to someone on a public forum, you
are responding not only to them but to everyone who may have some
context to the conversation, no context, a harboured grievance, or
someone who just wants to have fun while sitting in front of their TV. It is
possible the person commenting on your post has considered their
response carefully or has given the subject two seconds of thought before
posting. Either way, you have no control over what they post.
There are two principles we teach on our conflict management training
courses:
1. I accept people may have opinions and feelings I cannot change.
2. I am responsible for my behaviour.
If you are in the customer service industry, you have probably been
trained to ‘delight the customer’ or that, ‘the customer is always right’. As
a company, we spend a lot of time trying to delight the customer and
make them feel good about dealing with us. However, there comes a point
in a challenging customer interaction where the more you try to make the
customer feel better, the worse the situation can get, particularly in
situations where there is little you can offer the customer. For example, if
a housing association has increased the rent, there is a very good chance
your angry customer is not going to get the rent reduced again, no matter
how angry they get.
If you are in a situation like that and it is playing out on social media, you
may have to accept that some customer opinions and feelings are
probably not going to change.
It is helpful in certain very challenging situations to let that sink in: I
accept people may have opinions and feelings I cannot change. Knowing
when to stop ‘fighting’ to change opinions and feelings matters. They
often change on their own when time passes and the emotion drops out
of the situation.
The other principle mentioned above is important too: I am responsible
for my behaviour.
In situations you cannot fully control, take control of the one person you
can control — yourself. Whatever you post on any platform, take a
moment to check whether the response you are about to publish is from a
person who is under control, or from someone who is having a go at
someone else on the forum or being overly defensive.
Want to arm your teams with Conflict Management Skills, visit our conflict courses for more information or get in touch for a quote