These days, online activity makes up an enormous amount of business, but many organizations are still unsure of how exactly to handle the Web. In this article I provide a set of guidelines I believe encourage success when communicating and doing business online.
One of my newsletter readers recently asked me,
“"In this age of weblogs and other postings, and aside from the usual 'behavior' guidelines for employees, could you provide guidelines for what is appropriate to engage in with respect to Net postings about company business, products, etc.? Among other concerns, we don't want to have a cacophony of conflicting views that might blur our various official messages. Thanks for any thoughts or examples."
First, let me note that I'm not an attorney and so I can't speak to the legal considerations inherent in the question. But I obviously work with attorneys enough to know I should issue that caveat. However, from a reputation management/PR perspective, here are some suggested guidelines that have proven effective. Organizations should:
1. Monitor what's being said about them online AT LOCATIONS CONSIDERED CREDIBLE BY THEIR STAKEHOLDERS, internal AND external.
2. Don't make assumptions about what sites/discussion lists/etc. are credible to your stakeholders. Ask them. You may be surprised.
3. Track any trends which appear to be developing -- e.g., particular subjects, allegations and/or damaging facts which recur with increasing frequency, possibly across multiple locations. Those trends may tell you anything from "you're doing something wrong that you have to fix" to "folks THINK you're doing something wrong so you'd better say something in the appropriate venue or, by default, they'll assume their perceptions are accurate."
4. Seldom, very seldom, respond directly to rumors, allegations, complaints directly in the same public venue where they appear. This often encourages fiery and unpleasant retorts (commonly called "flames"), if not from the person to whom you're responding then from other users that only cause further harm. Instead, IF the venue involved (e.g., an online discussion board/bulletin board service) allows you to send email directly to the message poster, do that -- send a message along the following lines (this is an actual example from a collection of "form" response we created for one of our clients, with information deleted/modified to protect its identity):
Dear _______:
Because we very much care about customer opinion, we regularly monitor online message boards and saw your posting at http://xxx.com. We wanted to provide you with some information.
I am sorry you have had trouble with your Brand X Widget. To receive top performance you have to have fresh ultra batteries. Also, I want to apologize for you not getting a response to your e-mails. Unfortunately, there was a period of time where we were upgrading our software and it caused some problems with our e-mail service. Since that time this problem has been corrected and the e-mails sent to Customer Service are answered promptly.
If you have any questions, please feel free to call our Technical Support Department at 800-999-9999. Alternately, if you give us your phone number by reply e-mail, we would be happy to call you.
Best Regards,
Mark Generic
Customer Service
Brand X Inc.
5. There are times when it IS appropriate to respond directly at the online site, but those are decisions have to be made very carefully, come from a source respected at the site involved, and be structured to encourage response off-site (by email or phone).
6. As implied by your question, it is important that messages to all stakeholders be consistent, regardless of whether they're made online or offline, to internal or external contacts. All organizations should have a planned and controlled "authorized spokesperson" policy.
