Chapter 30Outrage Outreach
Reaction, rebellion, and rage do not take the weekends off. Whether brands decide to be part of the social media conversation or not, they need to be listening. I am a huge opponent of automation in social, except when it comes to listening. There are companies that can help you, such as Meshfire1 and Trackur, or it can be as simple as setting up a Google search for your brand and any keywords for your industry you want to keep an eye on. As we spoke about in the Delta story, even search for common misspellings of your name by irate tweeters so blind with anger that they can't type and fume at the same time.
How a business manages angry customers matters. In The Book of Business Awesome/UnAwesome, we spent a lot of time talking about how to handle outrage. When it hits the fan, it's not time to hide behind the fan; it's time to be awesome. A properly handled online outrage can leave the company looking better after the screwup than before. It's all about company reaction: authenticity, immediacy, and appropriate response.
A perfect example of how to handle outrage successfully was from Liberty Bottleworks, a water bottle company from Washington State. Cofounder Ryan Clark's reply to an angry customer led to a ton of exposure and positive reviews for his company. A customer, furious that the company had not been fast enough in fixing an issue with her order, posted the following all-caps wonder on the company's Facebook page.
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