The Push for Real-Time Response

Social media experts are quick to extol the virtues of a rapid-response communication strategy, particularly when it comes to dealing with crises. While real-time crisis response does have its benefits, engaging with customers in this manner can backfire spectacularly if you do it wrong. Here's what you need to know about crafting a good real-time customer and crisis response strategy.

Today's consumers are Internet savvy, and they are just as likely to tweet about their dissatisfaction as they are to pick up a phone or email the targeted companies. Devoting resources to developing and maintaining a real-time response strategy is a worthy investment. Customers will perceive your brand more favorably, and you can respond to burgeoning problems quicker which can prevent minor issues from morphing into major scandals.

At the same time, a poorly executed real-time crisis response can destroy a brand within seconds. Politics provides ample evidence of this. When former Arizona Senator Russell Pearce posted on his Facebook page that James Holmes could have been stopped if someone in the theater had been armed, he received an immense amount of backlash from citizens all around the country. He later apologized for his thoughtless crisis response. Though it's unlikely this gaffe contributed to his failure to win the 2012 Republican primary for the Arizona senate seat, it certainly didn't help his political aspirations.

The key to succeeding with a real-time communication strategy is forethought. To protect your company's reputation, you should craft official responses beforehand. While it's impossible to predict what will happen in the world or your business at any given time, it is possible to develop standard protocols for responding to customers and events. For example, a client who tweets about dissatisfaction with your product could be given a phone number and politely directed to call the company . An erupting scandal, of course, would require a very different reply, such as "We are aware of the issue and are monitoring its development," until the company could formulate a more appropriate and specific crisis response.

As part of your real-time response strategy, you can use reputation monitoring tools to help you keep an eye on the conversation surrounding your company. People are always talking about businesses whether publically or behind closed doors. Monitoring tools like Google Alerts and Trackur help you stay abreast of what people are saying so you can take advantage of positive trends and proactively deal with problems.

Any communication plan you develop will only be as good as the people who implement it. Therefore, it's critical that you properly train employees to ensure everyone is stepping out on the same foot. Failure to do so could result in embarrassing gaffes that hurt the company no matter how good your crisis response is. Invest time and effort into your real-time response strategy and you'll be rewarded with happy customers and a great company reputation.

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