Ecommerce Forums: Dealing with forum complaints?

[takeover]

We sell a lot of widgets online and some of our business comes from widget forums. The problem we are having is the forum is like a double edged sword. We get a nice amount of business from it, but if a customer has an issue they instantly post on the forum without contacting us about their issue and how pissed they are. What we have found is if a customer does not get their way, they threaten to post on the forum and make us loss business.

We try to keep an eye on the forum and we step into any threads that a customer has a problem, but sometimes it is too late and we already lost 5-10 customers who just read a forum post and they do not even know the full story.

My question is for all the merchants who use a forum to sell goods. What do you do in these circumstances? We have tried to ignore some of the posts in the past and it just turns into a big snowball. We have also tried reasoning with some of these people and they continue to dog us on the forums and we waste more energy trying to help out these people.

I would love to hear some feedback and some solutions.

[jomoweb]

Maybe you could start your a widget forum on your own site, and have it moderator controlled. You can screen messages before they are posted, and might be able to draw quite a bit of traffic.

For postings on third party forums:

Make friends with the forum moderators, and learn the TOS of those forums. These posters may be in violation to the forum, and you can get the moderator to remove the post.

Don't ignore the posts, but don't waste your time on them either. A pre-written generic reply will at least show potential customers you are there to help when they need it.

Take a non-aggressive tone no matter how wrong or flaming the customer is. It is you who are showing you are the bigger person. However, be non-defensive as well. It is not your fault the customer did not go through the proper channels.

Illustrate:
- You have great service, and you care about that customer
- You prefer the customer to contact you directly with issues. Show other people you have an effective channel to solve issues.
- Provide a link to your site, or your customer service terms for others to see. Spin it into an opportunity to get new business.

IMO- One post is all you need. Don't get into a "I want the last word!" situation. If the customer hasn't stopped after your reply, that shows other people it is just an angry customer out to get you.

[robjones2]

I would also not get into discussions or arguments in the forums.

Respond politely as suggested above with a generic messsage,

"Dear Mr Smith,

Please contact our Customer Service Team on ...., and they will be pleased to help you resolve your query promptly.

Kind Regards

Helen Jones
Widgets, Inc
www.widgetsinc.com - the best widgets in town"

This gives a clear message to other forum leaders that you are professional organisation, you do respond to people, BUT they do need to contact you and tell you.

[takeover]

Thanks for the replys so far, this is a big help.

[Corey Bryant]

There are some forums out there that have a feature in which you must approve the posts before they are shown to the public. This way, you can be notified off the problem before it is posted to the public.

People will always complain more than they will gve a compliment - that is human nature. Let others though maybe see how well you do respond to complaints every so often, this way it shows how your customer service really is

-Corey

[vincevincevince]

You should reply politely and helpfully, leave the details for your support contact, and then lock the thread preventing further replies. State that you are unable to discuss their case in the public forum as you are bound by the terms of you <link> Privacy Policy </link>.

[goldminer]

I heard somewhere that in average, an unsatisfied customer will tell it to 10 other people whereas a satisfied one will only tell to 2 or 3.
We never hear about trains that are ontime!

So the question could also be how to make satisfied customers speak more?

a little word about "we care about your feedback" on all your communications : in the packages you send, the "order confirmed" mail...?

there are also probably ways to turn customers into supporters...
fan customers answering complaints, isn't it powerfull?

[takeover]

These are 3rd party forums, so we are unable to lock the threads or moderate them unfortunatley.

[HughMungus]

For postings on third party forums:

Make friends with the forum moderators

Works for Google!

[rogerd]

One distinction you can make is solving customer service problems vs. product discussions. This forum, for example, has a policy that any disputes or customer service issues NOT be discussed here but rather handled directly with the vendor. Perhaps you could get the forums to operate in this manner; it's also beneficial to them from a liability standpoint. Someone posting, "Don't deal with ____, they are a bunch of crooks. They took my money and never shipped my product," could create legal issues for the forum. (That's why many forums don't allow posts of that type.)

[linear]

For a little different spin on the same issue:

I operate a third party forum with a focus on widgets. My users occasionally post their experience with widget vendors, and that's a good thing from a community perspective.

I would actually prefer if more vendors followed robjones2's advice from post 3 in this thread. It would add value to my forum to be able to show that vendors actually had enough of a customer service presence in my forum to pay attention to posts complaining about service. I actively solicit vendor participation, and I clearly label accounts associated with vendors.

So, to takeover, I would suggest that following robjones2's program would be a service to the forum operators as well.

See also: The Cluetrain Manifesto.

[Neo541]

In our forum, if anyone has a complaint, we go to the absolute fullest extent to make that person happy, and do it in public. It tends to make the person look unreasonable in the face of such customer service. :)