I’d also love to hear if others have suggestions as to how they deal with online criticisms.

I really enjoyed this post; thank-you! I work for an organisation that has serviced its customers badly in the past. Even though we’ve moved on (new people, acknowledgement of past faults), once you’re known for bad attitude it can be hard to shake. Consequently, every time there is the slightest problem with one of our products, we get flamed on community discussion lists (email groups). It can be horribly personal and disastrously critical, but my “coping mechanism” is to recognise that the harsher the comments, the more the frustration that has engendered them – so I’m feeling bad, but boy, my customer is REALLY fed-up. That helps to take the sting out but I’d never recommend *not* taking it personally: it’s taking these things personally that has changed the core values of our business, vastly improved our customer service and, for the most part, turned around our brand identity.

My responses to these criticisms vary but my general mantra is (a) make it personal – no-one wants to hear a corporatised robotic response, and it helps to improve our customers’ perception of the organisation if they recognise that it’s other human beings on the end of their frustration; (b) mea culpa – if there’s responsibility to be taken, take it (c) but don’t overdo it – and keep your response concise, so that you’re not forcing your frustrated consumer to read reams of text (and also, subliminally, you’re downplaying the issue by not overreacting to it).

Any other suggestions?!