Facebook: Deleting Business Owner’s Responses

Facebook is a dumpster fire.

How’s your organic reach going?

Got 2000 followers and 10 people see your posts?

About right.

There’s no real way to get around it. Having a Facebook account is pretty much a given in the digital world.

7 in 10 adults use the big blue F.

So Facebook is here to stay, but it doesn’t mean they always get it right.

Enter the latest curveball from Facebook. It’s now harder for business owners to respond to recommendations when Facebook puts the power of a delete button in your customer’s hands.

Yup, you read that right. The replies a business makes to reviews and recommendations can now be deleted by the person leaving the original post.

Read on to learn more about how we uncovered this not so latest and greatest feature from Facebook.

Business Pages Update

In August 2018, Facebook rolled out a set of new “exciting updates” for business owners.

Scores of marketers jumped on the interwebs to tell everyone about how it provides easy ways to now interact with their customers.

Facebook changed business reviews to recommendations in a way to “make it more social for everyone”.

Yay!

Not quite.

What all these articles don’t point out is the HUGE RED FLAG for business and company page owners on Facebook.

Reputation Management

We’ve all seen had it happen. The dreaded bad review.

“My coffee was cold”

“The food was too bland”

“I can get your product for xx less on Amazon!”

1 star, 2 star… they ding your star rating.

Any marketer worth their salt – us included – will tell you that responding to reviews in a timely manner is critical.

I gave a presentation to some local social media managers and small business owners about social media and reputation management by responding to reviews.

(You can download a pdf of the presentation for FREE, just click the link.)

The key takeaways were:

• Address Promptly
• Responsive, Not Reactive
• Move the Conversation Offline
• Highlight the Positives
• Ask Questions
• Give some Stellar Customer Service
• Try and Make It Right

Rinse and repeat.

Deleting Reviews and Recommendations

You can’t. Facebook doesn’t allow it.

• You can report the recommendation – if they use inappropriate language or it’s vulgar, otherwise, you’re SOL.
• You can respond to the recommendation, telling your side of the story.
• You can turn recommendations off.

We manage and post to Facebook accounts for a wide variety of industries, and recently, one of our clients received an emotionally charged negative recommendation.

Thankfully, our client was prepared due to interactions with the original poster (OP) previously and responded to the recommendation with their side of the situation.

I saw the recommendation the next morning, when the OP also posted the same rant to their Google My Business (GMB) account.

I had a quick conversation with our client outlining a response similar to the response left on Facebook.

The client emailed me a little later.  “The Facebook response is gone! Did you delete it?”

Deleting Responses

Did you know that an OP can delete a business’ response to a recommendation?

As in, if someone gives you a negative recommendation about your business on your Facebook Business Page, and as a business owner, you respond to the recommendation on your Business Facebook Page, highlighting and addressing any comments and concerns:

They Can Delete Your Response

Yeah.

Facebook Is a Dumpster Fire.

We were in shock. Shook, even as the kids might say.

So naturally, I took to the interwebs.

But no one was talking about this!

How?!

I was outraged on behalf of my clients.

I started a Facebook chat with support. They confirmed, that an OP can delete the response from a business.

I think he was even taken back.

So, what to do?

How To Respond When They Delete A Business Response

How you respond when a person who makes a negative recommendation deletes your business’ response really depends on you and your business

You can:

Turn It Off – Turning off recommendations is a setting on Facebook pages.

Do Nothing – although now there will be a recommendation on your page with no response.

Respond Again – although they might delete it again. #HoldingGrudges

Respond Globally – as a new post on your page, post that while customers and clients can make recommendations to the page, they aren’t always telling the whole side of the story and to look at your other reviews as an example of your excellent customer service.

Put Them On Blast – Screenshot the review, post it as a post on your business page and give your side of the story.

Moving On

Facebook isn’t really helping businesses by having this loophole where people who may have grudges against a business can delete business response to their negative recommendation.

It will probably blow over. Your true customers will shine through.

Less than 24 hours after the OP posted on our client’s page they received (4) 5-star reviews.

The customers you want to connect with will see past the crazy.

Plus if you only had 5-star reviews, it might be a little suspicious.

You can add it to the growing list of headaches…I mean things, a business owner should keep track of.

At Neon Goldfish, we manage online accounts and reputation management for our clients. If this is something you’re interested in, let’s chat.

If you’re like me and want to send Facebook some feedback about how this feature handcuffs business owners, feel free.

Log into your Facebook page, and click on “Help”, and select “Send Feedback”.

 

As much as I love being the one who discovered a “new thing”, this can’t be new.

Have any of you experienced a deleted business response?

Sound off in the comments and tell us.

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