The short answer is yes. You should answer in a polite and professional way that tries to take the sting out of any negative comment online and offers a solution to it through non-public communication. This could be through giving them an email address or phone number to call to discuss the matter in private. If you don’t answer, this may seem like you don’t care or haven’t seen it. Both of these outcomes are bad for perception.

There are a few tools we use to monitor comments and to answer and respond to online reviews and comments. There are a number of social media tools such as later.com as well as our marketing automation platform, SZL. You should set up Google Alerts to your inbox at least once per week for all your main company and product keywords. 

It’s always best when a direct customer interaction comes from the company to the customer. This way you can be authentic and interact with the customer in a way that is authentic and real. It should also be done in a timely fashion and not weeks or months later. We help clients come up with solutions based on their goals and resources.