Running a competition site is, for the most part, a fun way of engaging with people and making money.
Yet for every business, there are always a few tricky customers. Maybe they leave a negative review or leave less-than-helpful comments: whatever it is, you’re not alone.
But what’s the best thing to do when you receive comments like that? Do you reply, or do you ignore the comment? What do you say?
We’re here to help you.
People are more mistrustful of competition sites than they are of other businesses. This can be a bit irritating, but it’s totally manageable, so don’t panic.
All it means is you have to be picky when you set up your online competition site.
Choose someone who knows their stuff to support you (cough cough Zap cough). It can help to set up a secure, encrypted payment gateway too, (cough cough Zap Pay cough).
At Zap, we can explain all the expectations and guidelines for competition businesses and show you how to reassure customers that your competition site is as safe as houses.
It all comes down to understanding gambling guidelines and being transparent. Easy enough:
If you cover these bases when you get started, you can be confident that you have a sturdy backdrop to fall back on when people make those negative comments.
Best practice recommends that you respond to all negative comments on social media, wherever possible. It’s all part of being transparent and honest, which helps to build trust, even when things get tricky.
Ignoring negative comments can reduce trust in your brand. Good customer service is the key to a good relationship with your audience. All brands get hateful and unhappy comments. What matters is how you deal with them.
So, don’t rush it, but do reply. It’s best to do so in a timely manner, striking while the iron is still hot.
Give your response some thought, and be willing to accept that sometimes, something might have gone wrong, and that the customer might be in the right. It’s no fault of your business. These things happen.
But, in that instance, show the person that you understand their concerns. Demonstrate that you’re doing everything in your power to fix their worries. Of course, it’s always good to apologise.
If you’re a little more confused about why they’re upset, take a step back for a second. Don’t go in guns blazing and suggest they’re wrong. Tell them that you’d like to understand a little more about the situation and invite them to send you an email or a message. This is helpful because it takes things out of the public eye, so you can resolve the issue in private.
This is the most important bit: never sink to their level. Keep your responses polite, calm, and succinct. Apologise where necessary, and show humility, politeness, and willingness to listen.
It’s best to be open to a compromise and to learn from the experience. It’s not a bad thing to make mistakes. You’re only human! It only becomes a problem if you insist on making the same mistake again and again.
While common advice is to respond to all the comments you get—good or bad— you haven’t got all day. Do you really have to reply to every single comment you ever get?
Our advice? If you can reply, definitely do so.
It can be helpful to look at comments with the mindset of, ‘is there something I can do to help this person?’. For example, if there is a negative review or a comment that calls out a bad experience with your customer service or website, we recommend replying. Most of the time, you will find that you can, indeed, help. In which case, of course you should!
However, there are occasions when it might be best to think twice.
Hide or delete these, where possible. If it’s really offensive, you can always report it to the social media platform.
If they aren’t relevant to your business, if they’re promotional or repetitive, you can probably give it a miss.
Trolls are deliberately provocative, trying to cause trouble for trouble’s sake. You can generally identify trolls by their jokey usernames or by questionable claims they’ve made about your business. Also, if they’ve left lots of negative comments everywhere, it’s probably just their idea of fun.
Your time is precious; you don’t want to spend it battling trolls. You can just hide these comments.
As a competition business, you might get a few comments accusing you of scamming customers. We all know this isn’t true, but remember that it comes from a place of mistrust and anxiety, rather than maliciousness.
The good news is that because it isn’t true, you can easily set it right with a response. Keep this response short and to the point. Reply in the comments so that others can see.
By commenting in the first place, you automatically undo some of the damage. After all, people who are genuinely out to scam others are not going to take the time to respond to negative comments.
Remind the commenter that, as a business, you do everything in your power to keep customers safe. You are fully transparent about prizes, prize draws, and competition guidelines. You might even refer them to documentation proving this: refund policies, for example.
Recognise that they are concerned, rather than cruel. Tell them that, if they’re worried, it might be worth referring to the testimonials and reviews on your website. Social Proof is a powerful tool, and if you can show them that others have had a good experience with your competitions, you can remove some of the anxiety they might have.
Finally, offer your contact details, so they can contact you personally with any further concerns they might have.
We can’t promise to rid the world of all petty comments. But we can help you to face up to them.
Now we’re talking!
Speaking of talking… if you want a chat or are concerned about any comments you’ve received, get in touch and we’ll see how we can help
