How Do You Handle Competitors Who Slander You?

[Cricket]

Admin Note: I asked for topics for the forum from my friends over on Facebook. This was one of the questions.

How would you handle competitors who slander you on Facebook and their website?

[snakeair]

Originally Posted by Cricket

Admin Note: I asked for topics for the forum from my friends over on Facebook. This was one of the questions.

How would you handle competitors who slander you on Facebook and their website?

Good question Cricket.

Me, i would respond with a little bit of humor and respond to the slander honestly. I won't take the bait and get into a disagreement. One thing that i could do to get back at my competitors is out rank them on all of there keywords that they are targeting. They can complain about me all they want to but i'll use there bad remarks as bait to get traffic.

[indybail]

While Snake's advice is probably the path one should take, I favor a scorched earth policy.

[Sprinkler Buddy]

Originally Posted by Cricket

Admin Note: I asked for topics for the forum from my friends over on Facebook. This was one of the questions.

How would you handle competitors who slander you on Facebook and their website?

If it's competitors that are saying things that are untrue, it will only make themselves look unprofessional in the long run. So I wouldn't worry about it and continue business as usual.

[ScriptMan]

I would turn it over to robjones for resolution.

[Sprinkler Buddy]

Originally Posted by ScriptMan

I would turn it over to robjones for resolution.

That's a great Idea too! Lol

[Ebla]

It depends on if we are talking slander or libel. People can talk all they want and I don't really care, but if they put it in writing that is another thing.

It would probably depend on what kind of damage I thought they could do. Some things you just have to nip in the bud, so I might send a well documented letter, and escalate from there.

[G10]

When this happens, the thing is to play "Win The Hearts and Minds" game in a mature manner. What this means is...

Do a review or interview on my site and one of the questions is about my competitor, my comments are kind and good about them. The interviewer then points me to the comments they said with the aid of a url. Again, I keep my comments good and say something like "If they wish to make such comments about my business then that is up to them but I have had no bad experiences to date with them and my business will not get drawn into slander match with them".

With a link from your site to their comments page, it won't be long before they see it and if it is run by adults and not kids, there is a very high chance that they will remove it.

The reason I would do it this way is because they will definitely see your comments and also it is the FREE way of sorting it out, anything else will start to get messy and even costly.

Heck many years ago we had it happen here at v7n. A member joined another forum (competitor) and started to slander one of our mods. I joined that forum and (some people knew me as a mod from here) joined in slandering him in a funny way and it just blew over with everyone just having a joke about it in the end.

It is all about "damage limitation management" and how to handle it without cost and threats.

[robjones]

How would you handle competitors who slander you on Facebook and their website?

With gloves. Best that when they're discovered there be no fingerprints.

[taschevapartner]

It's a very important subject. I think honesty is the most important weapon here. Customers always feel who is straight to them.

[Brave7]

Originally Posted by Sprinkler Buddy

If it's competitors that are saying things that are untrue, it will only make themselves look unprofessional in the long run. So I wouldn't worry about it and continue business as usual.

I will do exactly the same thing, no need to waste time with that.

[5593907]

For me it would come down to how potentially damaging the slander could be, coupled with a cost/benefit analysis. By that I mean, how "bad" is the slander and how much time and money will I potentially have to invest to deal with it compared to the expected benefits?

While I certainly put a value on my reputation and the reputation of my business (or businesses), I'd have to to some serious evaluation of the cost/benefit.

I did have a comptitor in a certain niche who posted some unflattering comments on both his company facebook page and twitter account. The statements were false and potentially damaging financially, so I had my attorney draft a nice request to have them removed. It cost me about $400, but the profit from one sale of this particular service more than covered the cost. In that case, the legal action made financial sense to me.

What I would not suggest doing, is allowing your anger to get the best of you (as I did once) and either post or retaliate in the same manner. That little incident cost me some money too. Just my opinion on the subject.

[ClarkLorraine]

That just shows how incompetent your competitor really is. The customers will recognize that before you do. And they'll likely withdraw whatever trust they've built with your competitor.

[lucky_witch]

If your competitor minds you, then that means you're somebody. Just stay professional and do your work. Dont mind those kind of people.

[taschevapartner]

I think honesty is the answer. Customers always appreciate honesty.

[txshellie]

I guess I'm too busy to notice if someone is slandering me on the internet.

I guess I just keep doing good business, treating my customers right and hope that by not drawing attention to any slander or nonsense, it just goes away on it's own.

If I ever encountered a serious issue, I'd contact the source, try to make it right. If nothing worked, the least you say ... the better. Unless you want to go to court.

I was reading a blog by an author who responded to a comment on another blog that said she swiped a couple of her recipes from a competitor. She went on and on about how it wasn't true. If she hadn't mentioned it on her blog, I would never have known it happened. It was probably pretty well contained in a small group of stay at home vegan women. But because she brought it to my attention... it made her look like a goof.

Everyone else wasn't thinking about her but her "response" to the slander in her blog kept the issue alive.

[deefinni]

Hello,

Depending on the type of slander, I might either try to contact the source and discuss it through.

Or, if it comes as some form of bad buzz, turn it to my advantage.
However, with any of the actions I would work on my e-reputation as well.

[DexMatt]

Well the real value of a business, i think can stand on negative reviews posted over social networks. This reputation management tactics ready to sink a business, need to be very carefully supervised, because competitors can do more then post a negative review.

Negative reviews - may turn into your side only if the competitors side, do something that really sink them up - otherwise a negative review is a negative review no matter where is being put.

[ehacker]

Well if a Megasite like this was being slandered I'd be surprised if this was the first time something like this ever happened...Which is to say that the previous defamers didn't destroy the site-what's different about this new site...?

[Davao.hotels]

Take it to the courts. haha! ah no.. I'll just be cool and do better at what I'm doing, because if you take over their ranks, they'll grind their teeth even more in envy and that's the best "revenge" you can give.