7 Strategies for Handling Online Trolls

Don’t let online trolls get the best of your small business. Accusations, negativity and combativeness can easily bring down your digital reputation, even if all the claims are baseless.

online-trolls

Instead of sitting back and letting online trolls have their way, or worse, responding and escalating the conflict, first understand why trolls exist in the first place, then learn seven effective strategies to handle each case.

Why Do Haters Exist?

Everyone, even the most successful brands, have haters. Some people will love everything about your company, from your values to your products. Others are hell-bent on telling everyone online how terrible you are. Why?

First, understand the difference between a troll and a dissatisfied customer. When a customer has a negative experience at your store and turns to Yelp to voice their dissatisfaction, this is legitimate. They can clearly state facts about when they visited or purchased a product from you. Even if they deliver a severe take-down of your establishment, the criticisms they offer may be real, and they may be opinions you can learn from, even if you don’t agree.

How Can You Tell You’re Dealing with a Troll?

trollThe main difference between trolls and actual unhappy customers is their intention. Even though the dissatisfied customer may say hateful things that resemble trolling behavior, it usually is related to their experience. The business didn’t meet their expectations. They can clearly state when they were at the store or restaurant. In addition, they have a specific problem that they want to complain about publicly.

On the other hand, trolling is vague. The poster usually doesn’t detail when they received a product or service from the company, perhaps because they never did. They don’t offer many details about why they have a negative view of the brand. They make inflammatory statements to elicit reactions. They may attack the character of the people who own the business. Their exaggeration is so great it’s plainly obvious. They’re also more likely to use curse words and have bad grammar.

So what’s a business owner to do?

1. Don’t Feed It

Trolls want an audience, and if you give them one, the trolling only escalates. This leads to the first and most important strategy for handling online trolls: Don’t feed into their behavior.

feed-me

Ultimately, the troll wants to embarrass and shame you. If you play their game, you’re bound to lose, because you can never win an argument with a troll. Even though what they write may bring out strong feelings to the contrary, never post when you’re feeling angry. A clear, thought-out response is essential to combating online trolls.

2. Form Brand Responses Ahead of Time

One of the best ways to prepare for troll attacks is to plan ahead. When you formulate a friendly, common sense branded response for negative comments in advance, you don’t have to worry about writing an individual response to that particularly awful personal attack you just read. You can simply tweak the response you have, then post.

When you respond publicly with a straightforward attitude, you’re offering an effective compare/contrast opportunity for future customers who happen upon this unfortunate online trolling review. They are able to see your grace and humbleness. And most of the time, the troll is the one who leaves a negative lasting impression, not your business.

3. Always Try to Address Negativity Offline

Whenever possible, try to have personal conversations with all your negative reviewers offline.

Tell the reviewer that you’re sorry they have such a negative view of your service or products, and you’d like a second chance to make things right. Give them your contact information and encourage them to reach out to you. This gets the negative dialogue out of the public sphere.

4. If You Don’t Have Anything Nice to Say …

KIND

It’s essential to stay positive in every interaction you have with online reviewers, whether they’re happy or unhappy customers, or simply online trolls. If a troll responds to your response, consider answering once, but don’t engage in a lengthy back-and-forth.

The more you’re required to respond to negative, baseless claims, the less likely you are to word your response in an open, positive way. If you’ve said all there is to say and you don’t have anything else nice to say, don’t say anything at all.

5. Be Factual

The easiest way to expose a troll’s lies is to combat falsehoods with facts. If you encounter online trolls who enjoy spreading rumors, understand that all rumors have a shade of truth. Otherwise, they wouldn’t spread.

Address the factual part of the statement. By confirming what the troll, the online audience and you know to be true, you establish your credibility. This makes it more believable when you go on to address the false parts of what the troll is posting.

6. Show Others You’re Listening

Regardless of how you feel about online trolls, it’s important that other customers on the web see that you’re able to respond with patience.

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It might be obvious that the poster clearly harbors a personal vendetta or is just trying to stir up a controversy. Still, when you respond in a way that shows you’re listening, you’re acting as an ambassador of your brand and you’re upholding your business’ values.

7. Report and Block if Need Be

Many experts say even though you may think you can spot trolls easily, your best bet is to treat every negative comment online as if it were from an actual customer, just in case.trolls-block

Always draw the line at abusive, offensive language, especially if it’s being posted on a platform you control, such as your company website. You can report and block users on social media who troll using vulgarity. Threats, hate speech and any other inappropriate content will get them booted off most social networking platforms and review sites.

Your Best Defense: A Strong Offense

The ultimate way to combat online trolls is to work to establish a solid, positive digital reputation for your business long before the haters show up to tear you down.

With the help of Accrue Reviews, you can work at consistently soliciting feedback from your satisfied customers in order to show the world the exceptional level of the product or service you provide. Contact us today to learn more!