亲爱的安妮：请给我们办公室的争论评评理吧。如果客户在博客上发布了很糟糕的评论，然后在网上传的沸沸扬扬，怎样才能最大程度地减小冲击呢？我在一家区域性电信公司的下属部门工作，带领着20个人的客户服务团队（一半在此，一半在印度）。大约三周前，我们转换到新的计算机系统时出了点小问题，一些客户账号乱了套，但现在已经修复了。问题是，某人在网上针对我们发布了非常负面的评论，用心险恶，却又不乏幽默（当然，我们完全消不起来），于是被转发到Facebook，并被其它博客引用，就此在网上蔓延开来。

    我们的行业竞争极为激烈，名声至关重要。有的团队成员非常愤怒，想要在网上和该文作者对质，并要求他撤回不负责任的评论。我觉得那不太合适。如果争端升级，岂不是会更引人注意？其它公司如何应对这类情况？——不知所措的人

    亲爱的“不知所措”：肯特•坎贝尔对你愤愤不平的同事深表同情。他说：“某人在网上发布负面评论时，你会觉得他们似乎穿过电脑屏幕给了你一巴掌。”坎贝尔是网络公关网站InternetReputationManagement.com的共同创始人和首席战略官，他的专长就是解决你描述的问题。

    他会强忍着笑，一本正经地告诉你：“我经常幻想着开发一个应用程序，每当有人发布不友好的评论时，就会受到轻微电击。想想吧，你坐在星巴克（Starbucks）里，周围不停有人被电到。”

    不过说真的，其实还有更仁慈、温和一点的方法，也更有效。采取任何行动之前，先看看你们公司的社交媒体政策（假定有这样的政策）如何处理这种情况。运气好的话，公司可能还设有社交媒体经理，他/她的职责就是监视、改进公司的网上形象，你就尽管让他/她去处理吧。

    如果没有专人负责，你的团队首先要做的就是冷静。坎贝尔说：“看到负面评论很自然会生气，但情绪激动时最容易犯错。”

    你的担忧不无道理，和诽谤者敌意对峙往往火上添油。坎贝尔继续说：“打口水仗只会吸引更多的负面关注。负面新闻会在搜索引擎中迅猛上升，因为人们总是出于好奇去点击。还没等你回过神来，成千上万的潜在客户就已经和你的竞争对手签约了。”吓倒你了吧。

    反之，他建议：“得试着在线下解决问题。如果评论者是匿名，或者实在没办法找到他/她的电话，你还可以在评论发出的地方留下自己的电话，请求评论者联系你，解决导致恶评的问题。而一旦通过实际的对话建立了实实在在的人际联系，你往往可以化解他们的怒气，甚至说服他们收回批评。”

    根据全球广告代理Arnold Worldwide的最新调查，对于在社交媒体上发表的对公司服务的抱怨，只有39%的美国消费者认为会得到回应。所以如果以诚意和善意去安抚抱怨者，对他/她来说会是个意外之喜。

    但如果此路不通，坎贝尔说：“你唯一能做的就是清理搜索结果的第一页。大多数人根本就不会搜到第二页。第一页通常有10项，要保证这10项全是正面信息。”坎贝尔的公司所属的小众行业就能做到这一点，但他也指出，如果你愿意费心费力的话，自己也办得到。

    “你希望第一页充满这样的内容：公司网站、公司的维基百科页面、公司的tweet、文章、新闻发布、公司博客的帖子、来自Facebook‘赞’公司的人的评论，或者任何其他能为公司增光添彩的事情，”他说，“保持新鲜劲，不断增添新内容。这样一来，如果坏评出现在第二页或者第五页，你就无需担心了，因为大多数人根本不会看到。”

    祝你好运！

    反馈：如果你们公司的产品或服务曾在网上被人猛烈抨击，你如何应对？欢迎评论。

    Dear Annie:Please settle an argument we're having in my office. If a customer posts a nasty review on a blog, and it then starts turning up all over the Internet, what's the best way to minimize the impact? I run a 20-person customer service team (half here, half in India) for a division of a regional telecom company. About three weeks ago, we ran into some glitches while switching over to a new computer system, and we screwed up a few customer accounts, which we have fixed. The problem is, somebody posted a very negative comment about us online, which, while it is vicious, is unfortunately also funny (although not to us), so it got reposted on Facebook, quoted on other blogs, etc.

    This is an extremely competitive business and we take our reputation seriously. Some of my team members are really upset and want to respond by confronting the writer of this comment online and demanding he retract it. I'm not so sure that's the way to go. If we escalate the dispute, won't it just get even more attention? How do other companies respond to this situation? —Perplexed

    Dear Perplexed:Kent Campbell sympathizes with your indignant colleagues. "When someone posts a nasty review online, it feels as if they had reached through the computer screen and smacked you," he says. Campbell is co-founder and chief strategy officer of InternetReputationManagement.com, whose bread and butter is resolving the very problem you describe.

    He adds, tongue firmly in cheek: "I've often fantasized about developing an app that would give someone a mild electric shock when they post a mean comment. Imagine it. You'd be sitting in Starbucks and people would be getting zapped all around you."

    For now, there are kinder and gentler -- and more effective -- solutions. Before you do anything, find out what your company's social media policy (assuming there is one) says about this situation. With any luck, there may be a social media manager whose job it is to monitor and polish your employer's online image, in which case you can hand this over to him or her and forget about it.

    If not, the first thing your team needs to do is calm down. "It's natural to feel angry over a bad review, but most bad decisions are made in the flush of emotion," Campbell says.

    Your suspicion that confronting your detractor in a hostile way will only make things worse is right on target, he adds: "Getting into a verbal brawl is only going to attract more negative attention. Bad news rises quickly on search engines, because people will click on it just out of curiosity, and before you know it, thousands of potential customers have signed on with your competition." Gulp.

    Instead, he suggests, "You need to try and work it out offline. If the commenter is anonymous or there is just no way to track down a phone number where you can reach him or her, then post your own phone number wherever the comment has appeared, and ask the person to please contact you so you can fix whatever prompted the bad review. Once you've made a human connection through an actual conversation, you can often disarm people -- and maybe even persuade them to retract what they said."

    That's especially likely because only 39% of U.S. consumers expect companies to respond to gripes about their service that are posted on social media, according to a recent survey by global ad agency Arnold Worldwide. So a sincere and friendly attempt to placate your nemesis may strike him or her as a pleasant surprise.

    If that approach is a dead end, says Campbell, "the only thing you can do is clean up the first page of your search results. Most people don't look beyond the first page on search engines. There are usually 10 items there, and you want them all to be positive." Campbell's company is part of an entire mini-industry that does that but, he notes, if you're willing to put in the effort, you can do it yourself.

    "You want to fill up Page One with your web site, your Wikipedia page, tweets, articles, press releases, posts from your own blog, comments from people on Facebook who 'like' you, and anything else you can find to put out there that reflects well on your company," he says. "Keep it fresh by continually adding new content. That way, if the negative comment turns up on Page Two, or Page Five, you don't need to worry so much about it, because most people will never see it."

    Good luck.

    Talkback: If your company's product or service has ever been slammed online, how did you deal with it? Leave a comment below.