Collector - May 2017 - 9
BESTPRACTICES 94% Of clients conduct online research before making a business purchase. SOURCE: ACQUITY GROUP so your response should be crafted to clear up any confusion they may have about debt collection laws and the collection process. While debt collectors sometimes worry about third-party disclosure concerns or whether to give the mini-Miranda when responding to online comments, "we just haven't seen that litigation," Collins said. COLLECTOR 05.17 "Plus often on these sites the consumer is using a screen name or avatar, not their actual name." In any case, it's best to keep your response short and sweet. Now is not the time to get into a long conversation with the consumer. "For me, it's one post or one tweet and then I'm done," Collins said. "It's not an engagement. You've gotten your information out there, and that's all you can do." Prolonging the interaction can actually do more harm than good-not only does it make you look bad to be defensive and argumentative, but in continuing the back and forth you are increasing the page's Google rankings, making the negative comments pop up in searches more easily. FOCUS ON THE POSITIVE Here's a simple way to help keep disgruntled consumers off public review forums: make it easy for them to submit complaints through your website, and follow up with each one so they know you are listening and want to resolve their issue. Next, get positive news about your company out there to help dilute any negative publicity. Posting consumer compliments, client raves and press releases about your company's community service efforts can help boost your website's ranking. Claim and build up your social media presence on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn, as well as business review sites like Yelp, Yellow Pages and the Better Business Bureau. When Meeks created his business page on Yelp, he added information about CCS's history as well as photos of awards his company has received. "A lot of the traffic we're seeing on Yellow Pages and Yelp is from consumers who are going online and searching for us to make sure our company is legit or who are looking for directions to our business," Meeks said. "That's what they want to do instead of picking up the phone and calling us, so I think it's really important to have a very strong representation online." Anne Rosso May is editor of Collector magazine. 9
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