Playing Devil’s Advocate: You Don’t Have To Always Engage.

I know that I’ve been saying in several blog posts now that you should always engage with your customers.  But recently I felt that there’s nothing that is set in stone that warrants this being followed 100% of the time. Please don’t get me wrong…I think that having a healthy and valuable conversation with your customers is especially helpful and can go a long way to appeasing your audience – good customer service.

However, there are times that present itself that you may find that it is probably best NOT to engage with certain customers…because they will never be satisfied. It should be used, though, as a method of last resort. These individuals could be unhappy customers, folks who just aren’t going to buy your product or feel that it’s not good enough for them, or even what we may term it as “trolls”.

So while you MUST make every attempt to try and reach out to any customers having trouble with your product, there may be times when you feel that the repeated response from your customer would be continued criticism without any regard or sign of collaboration or compromise, then perhaps it might be best to move on and agree to disagree.

This is probably prevalent in using social networks specifically because you’re going to be monitoring the buzz and the attention your brand and product will be receiving on the Internet. During this search you’re probably going to encounter some conversation on Twitter, on YouTube, or perhaps Facebook that you find negative. I wouldn’t shrug it off…see what the negative comment is about. If it’s something worth pursuing, then go right ahead. But, if you find that it’s not going to be resolved in a fashionable manner, then you might want to take another approach and just thank them for their comment and that you’re sorry you couldn’t help them out.

Bottom line here is that don’t think that you need to appease everyone…it’s just not possible.