Why brands should actively encourage negative feedback through Twitter

I’ve read many times that the foundation of brand is trust, and that consumers trust and loyalty increases when their experiences consistently meet or beat their expectations. Simple, really. Yet I consistently see brands concentrating so very hard on the first half; improving their customer experience (packaging, point of sale, etc, etc), and in doing so, failing to identify very simple opportunities to blow customer expectations out of the water. One of these ‘quick wins’, in my view, is encouraging negative feedback through Twitter.

Encouraging and facilitating open, unrestricted and unmediated feedback from customers is something that scares the living daylights out of many brands and business owners for obvious reasons; many would rather bury their head in the sand and only surface to hear the good things.

At the risk of being looked at like I’ve lost the plot, I tend to take a deep breath and recommend it to clients anyway. Here are a few reasons why:

1.    Dealing with complaints promptly and fairly tends to breed intense loyalty.
2.    Doing so in the public eye says a lot about your brand, and makes the customer feel important in a sincere manner.
3.    Few human beings are proof against the implied flattery of rapt attention, the unvarnished truth is that we all have a desire to feel important (refer to point 2)
4.    It is believed that a 4 ½ out of 5 rated product or service will sell better than its 5 out of 5 competitor, as it is usually deemed more credible and trustworthy.
5.    The chances are that a generous, forgiving attitude will be taken and your mistakes will be minimalised.

I appreciate that this approach won’t be appropriate for all businesses, and its effectiveness will vary according to the nature of the sector and audience. A good test is to imagine the client’s brand as a person. Would they be great conversation, a good listener, or would they talk incessantly about themselves? This is usually a good indication of whether they need a rethink!