“If you don’t do this, I’m going to post about it in a Facebook group”
The infamous grocery store temper tantrum.
The full-fledged meltdown that occurs when a toddler isn’t allowed to get that candy bar, snack, teddy bear, or whatever else it was that they had their eyes on.
We’ve all experienced it - whether it was with your own children, saw it happen to other parents, or you were that toddler growing up.
So what do you do?
Do you cave in and give them the candy bar?
Do you chastise them to get them to stop?
Do you ignore it entirely?
Turns out, how you approach these grocery store temper tantrums is the same exact way you handle the adult version of these temper tantrums when someone threatens to “go to social media” about some experience with your company.
Do you cave in and give them what they want?
Do you push back and argue with them?
Do you ignore them entirely?
To start, put your ego aside
Be honest and ask yourself these two questions first:
Are we the wrong ones here?
If I were in their shoes, would I be upset about this?
Sometimes you’ll realize you are on the wrong side of this one, and that’s ok.
Own up to it.
Make it right.
Other times you’ll realize you aren’t on the wrong side of it and that this person is upset that they aren’t getting their way.
This is the scenario that leads to the inevitable adult social media temper tantrum.
Anyone that’s been in marketing for more than 2 days has seen a post/tweet/etc. like this about their company:
So what do you do?
…if the post is already shared?
The damage has already been done.
It’s online and people have seen it.
They’ve played their card and now the ball is in your court.
Remember, the three common options here are to cave, to argue, or to ignore. Let’s play these out:
You cave in to their request. You comment on the post that you’ll give them the refund. You’ll give them the additional license. You’ll let them break their contract. But the damage has already been done, even if they delete it, it’s been seen. You’ve eaten the cost.
This simply preventing further future damage.
You argue with them. You comment on the post that you won’t give them the refund. You won’t give them the additional license. You won’t let them break their contract. The damage has already been done, but you haven’t eaten any costs.
More damage may still be coming if they continue to post. Understand the impact their first post made. If it was minimal, it may be better to hold your ground. If it was large, it may be better to find a way to meet them halfway to prevent another wave from crashing on you.
You ignore it. You don’t comment on the post at all. The damage has already been done, but you aren’t adding more fuel to the fire.
This is the “wait and see” approach. Is this individual shouting into the abyss and receiving no sympathy from others? Is this individual building a rallying cry that’s gaining support by the minute?
…if they’re threatening to post?
No damage has been done yet.
No one has seen anything yet, the conversation is still being kept private.
But they’ve still played their card and now the ball is in your court.
Again, the three common options here are to cave, to argue, or to ignore. Let’s play these out from this angle:
You cave in to their request. You tell them that you’ll give them the refund. You’ll give them the additional license. You’ll let them break their contract. No external damage has been done. But you’ve eaten the cost.
You’ve prevented this from snowballing on social, but you’ve also set a new precedent internally for your company that may not be ideal. Further, this person is likely going to tell others that you’ll cave if they threaten to go to social. You’ve created a negative flywheel.
You argue with them. You tell them that you won’t give them the refund. You won’t give them the additional license. You won’t let them break their contract. No external damage has been done yet, but they’re likely to follow through on their threat and go to social. Jump up to the above “what to do when it’s already been posted section”.
You now have the three cards again to play given their move.
You ignore it. You don’t address the issue at all. No external damage has been done, but this will likely fester and further irritate them if they continue to feel unheard.
This often leads to a social post as a last-ditch effort to get your attention. These often receive support from others as they “sympathetically” feel for the person because they’re going unheard
Here is where I’d recommend a 4th option:
Find a way to meet them halfway (assuming they haven’t gone mental on you)
They haven’t gone to social yet, that’s good.
So now let’s bring it back to the human side of things. No one likes to feel like they’re not being heard. That their problems or concerns are being swept under the rug.
Step 1: Acknowledge that you hear them
Reply back that you’ve received their note. That you’re escalating to the appropriate team member. Sometimes this is all they need and it’ll fizzle out altogether.
Step 2: Get the appropriate person on a call with them
An amazing thing happens when you pull someone away from behind a screen and into a Zoom call. You realize that they’re human, too. And you realize those sharp words that are so easy to write don’t come so quickly face-to-face. Both parties realize they want to solve the problem or concern in a way that benefits both. This is the ideal state.
“But Sam, that’s not scalable. If we did that for every customer that voiced a problem, we’d be on those calls all day!”
This is why having a defined process for things like this is key.
When do you follow each route?
When do you “escalate”?
When do you actually escalate?
That needs to be determined by each company. And that’s why this issue is so tough to solve for. There’s no one-size-fits-all answer that can be applied to every company.
Big companies can afford to hold the line more.
Small companies can’t afford to lose a cent of revenue.
Strong brands have champions who will come to their support on social.
Weak brands will see others pile on the post with more negative sentiment.
Once you understand where you sit across various spectrums, you can determine the playbook for your company.
And remember, it should also be adapted as time goes on and you move across spectrums.
How have you handled situations like these?
I’d love to hear from you if you’ve used or seen a playbook that has solved for this. Reply back here or shoot me a DM on LinkedIn.
One LinkedIn post I bookmarked this week
When was the last time you tried to create or rework your value proposition? How hard could it be to write a few sentences? How long could it possibly take?
(spoiler alert: VERY hard + far longer than you think it will)
We were revisiting ours not too long ago, and I WISH I had this post from Anthony Pierri before we sunk our teeth into it.
For those of us who aren’t product marketing specialists, this 9-slide carousel packs more of a punch than the Marketing 201 course I took in college. Highly recommend you download + stash for the time you’ll need it.
One podcast episode I enjoyed this week
“Time and attention are very different things…While you have 24 hours a day, you don’t have 24 hours of attention a day. And while you might work 8-hour days, you don’t have 8 hours worth of attention that you can dart back and forth.”
Something I’ve been being much more intentional about recently has been how I structure my workday. When do I do my best creative work? When am I able to focus best for deep, analytical work? When do I contribute best in meetings?
Once I understood those, I started to timebox my days around them, and I wish I had started doing this 5 years ago.
This episode from the 37signals team is a great conversation and continues to solidify that this is a more productive approach. Highly recommend you give it a listen - it’s a quick ~20 minute listen.
And for anyone interested, here’s a playlist I add to with some of my favorite podcast episodes:
See you next week,
Sam
Handling that social media temper tantrum sounds a lot like the S+R=O framework.
Situation + Response = Outcome.
If you have a targeted outcome in mind, it helps you formulate your Response and assess the Situation more carefully.
I have a time block I use to write down all if the ideas floating in my head. It's called Ideation and it helps me refocus knowing I have the idea recorded. Sort of a mental reset.