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Music Marketing Manager at B&W
26 March 2009 08:56am
I'm wondering what the best practice is for blog comment moderation. Someone has posted a comment which is rude about the company (though no swearing so not particularly offensive) and not relevant to the blog.
Our comments policy states we may moderate comments if they are not relevant which this really isn't. While I don't want to police comments and have never not approved one even unflattering ones, this one really isn't relevant.
Would it be okay to delete it and email the poster to let him know why?
Ecommerce Manager Europe at Wolverine Worldwide
26 March 2009 15:30pm
Why delete it? If you want transparency surely this is an opportunity to show them you are listening to what is being said?
Maybe a follow up comment that addresses the issue that caused the rudeness and shows others out there, Hey we listen and we react, turn a negative into a positive.
Deleting could cause them to come back with something worse, what about, follow up post and an email addressing it. Proactive response to CGM.
E-Business Consultant at Dan Barker
26 March 2009 17:17pm
if utterly irrelevant, i'd actually just delete it & get in touch with them direct.
Usability Specialist at Freelance
27 March 2009 12:58pm
Agreed, it's irrelevant. But I wouldn't stick to the letter of your policy when it is not in anybody's best interest to do so.
This person has a grievance with the company. This is an opportunity for both parties to get what they want. You want to show this person (and anyone else who is reading) that you care about your customers. They want you to do something about their grievance.
So leave it where it is and respond saying that you are going to leave the comment where it is despite the fact that it is irrelevant. You'd like to get to the bottom of the problem so you've sent them some direct contact details so you can both resolve the issue.
As they say, customer service is the new marketing
Director / Web Developer at DJ Tutor Cyf
27 March 2009 21:13pm
I'd agree with Jez Wilson. People usually stop shouting and stat to be reasonable once they realize someone is actually listening and prepared to help.
The small minority of mindless haters will soon alienate everyone, and people will probably beg you to delete them.
Web PR Consultant at Clickthrough Marketing
30 March 2009 14:19pm
I would definitely advise leaving the comment where it is, and responding in a courteous and helpful manner. If you have an unhappy customer, then resolving the problems causing that unhappiness or grievance may lead to less of the same issues in the future with other customers. You never know, you may end up with an evangelist for your company and products by dealing with the problems!
E-Business Consultant at Dan Barker
30 March 2009 14:42pm
Here's my devil's advocate analogy:
Imagine if the second post in this thread was "E-Consultancy sucks. I paid £XXX and my website still doesn't make money".
Would you advise for e-consultancy to leave that & responding here?
Ecommerce Manager Europe at Wolverine Worldwide
30 March 2009 14:48pm
Dear Devils Advocate,
I was very sorry and alarmed to hear that you have had a problem and I would like to assure you that I am personally looking into this now.
This is a very rare occurance (in fact you are the first) and I will contact you by email as soon as I have got to the bottom of this.
Kind Regards
Fred Blogss
CEO (The boss!) of a company...
---
Complete transparency and openess.
Thoughts???
Web PR Consultant at Clickthrough Marketing
30 March 2009 18:13pm
@ Devil's Advocate, In that particular instance, it is more likely that the website sucks, and therefore assistance could be given in either helping out the poor soul, or diplomatically pointing out that the website and/or products are naff! Point being though that if you remove the post from your own site, then 'aggrieved of Acacia Avenue' will likely get ever more irate and proceed to post in a million and one places where you have no chance to remove the post and the whole thing could snowball out of control. @jez as long as occurrence was spelt correctly, I would think that sort of response would be appropriate ;o)
Director / Web Developer at DJ Tutor Cyf
30 March 2009 19:18pm
There is another approach for persistent troublemakers, and thare's a name for it I can't remember.
Instead of banning them or blocking their comments, you make the site slow or faulty when they are logged in.
1. They are too busy gloating about your slow website to talk about anything else.
2 Nobody else relates to that because it only affects them so they lose credibility.
3 They get bored of sitting watching pages load and go somewhere more exciting.
I haven't tried it , but apparently it's very effective.