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The Horrors of Bad Online Response

  • July 16, 2010
  • Blog

For any brand, be it a company, consultancy, individual or public sector organisation, bad feedback is never great. It’s the last thing that you probably want to really deal with, and it’s the last thing your brand really needs.

When bad feedback is expressed online, whether it’s on a forum, a company website or worse yet a social media account, you’re in tricky territory and fast, effective and honorable action is absolutely essential. You could be in a quick sand scenario pretty fast depending on how bad the comments are and where they’re getting posted, which of course translates to, how many people are reading them?

Nestle are a fine example of very quickly being swallowed up by the quicksand.  Greenpeace made a brutal viral video highlighting the unethical use of palm oil that goes into Kit Kat bars, and killing off the endangered orangutans in the process. If Nestle had admitted to hiring a miscreant Cadbury employee to do the honours of responding to the video, I would have believed them.  They didn’t. They just dealt with it in an incredibly bad way.

First they removed the video from YouTube and then after struggling with the myriad of appalled customer remarks on Facebook and twitter they resorted to responding rudely.  Customers said that they wouldn’t have probably noticed had Nestle not removed the video, which of course became a story in itself. And the rude responses from Nestle staff? Well, I’m sure you can imagine how people felt about that.

Another recent story to hit the online tech press is that of plastic surgeon Dr. Kimberly Henry who is now suing people who left derogatory comments on a doctors’ forum about her work. That’s right suing the online critics. And it’s not just a little ‘I want you to pay me some small damages’ slap on the wrist. She is suing the reviewers for ‘libel and defamation, invasion of privacy and interference with prospective economic advantage and is seeking $1 million in general damages and $1 million in special damages’. She doesn’t sugar coat it does she?

Now there are a few things to consider here. First how realistic is this lawsuit? Well, if it is found to be libelous-which is unlikely due to the pretty well established set of guidelines in favour of anti-SLAPP laws in America- then it could have some legs. But considering that a number of other patients have spoken up and said similar things it’s likely that it could be true, especially in light of their horrific post-op problems.

Legality aside though, where is this doctor’s head if she thinks she can get away with not responding to comments about her business, especially bad ones? And when it comes to negative comments on the web once they’re out, they’re out.

She clearly doesn’t have a clue about how to treat her patients properly-all accused malpractice put to the side for the moment-and instead she has got a “colleague”, or a “friend” or maybe even herself masquerading as an employee of her practice known on the forum as ‘Blogger’ (which then strangely changed to ‘Blogger 2’) to respond on her behalf. It’s all very suspicious and down right bizarre.

Why would you not, as an individual brand, or better yet a doctor, respond directly? If I received comments like that about a service I had provided, I’d be on that forum faster than you can say lawsuit. Which is probably the time it took her to decide to actually start one.

Granted, she was victim to a massive onslaught of very distraught customers, some of whom said they were ‘disgusted with her’, and that she had ‘no morals’ and is ‘greedy and unprofessional’. But unfortunately there were just too many people sharing too many bad experiences. Had Henry herself got online and dealt with it there and then, things could have been different.

Surely that by standing up and being accountable for whatever poor service you may have provided simply demonstrates your motivation to resolve the problem immediately, as well as your integrity and resilience. And I would have thought that in the medical profession that was absolutely critical.

But instead Henry choked. She only really considered herself in this big mess and quickly turned to legal action. What a super example of customer care.  There categorically must be some truth in those comments and unfortunately Henry has only portrayed herself as a coward and someone who is probably ashamed of something, and not to mention a very questionable figure in her profession.

On a final note, she clearly doesn’t understand the Internet much either. Perhaps she needs to get up to speed with how forums work and, how about, get to grips with the fact that EVERYONE is online now and forums are a hive of customer and patient activity.  Or maybe her staff or whoever is ‘representing’ her online needs to swat up on how customer service works in this century. Just a thought.

29 Comments for this entry

  • Banned, July 17th, 2010 on 3:57 am

    The doc is declaring her Luddite status @ her own expense. This lawsuit is a staggering act of capriciousness against freedom of speech and the right ‘to opine’ at will. Gulag Archipelago, anyone?

  • mandy, July 26th, 2010 on 11:03 am

    Hi there-thanks for your comment and yes I quite agree with you. It’s unbelievable how backward she is and how baffling her chosen method of response is. It was vague, cowardly and her behaviour was the very antithesis of being customer centric. The lawsuit in itself is totally absurd and she is almost certain to lose.

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