Customer Comments on Corporate Blogs, Page 179

While Brian Lusk talks about the user comments on Southwest Airlines’ blog on page 179 (last question) and 180 (first question) I can’t help but feel a little bit put off by what is put forward as generous moderation, but sounds more like pretty harsh moderation.

Lusk begins his answer with assuring us that they don’t edit user comments for content (though they do edit spelling mistakes, which at least from my perspective seems strangely ambitious and weird – I don’t want anyone to edit mine or others’ posts, even if they are spelled incorrectly). Lusk continues:

“We put up some negative ones. With the skirt issue we put up some pretty negative comments. I don’t think a lot of companies would have posted that kind of negative response on a corporate blog.”

And here Lusk seems oddly proud to have allowed negative user comments at all, implicitly saying that they deleted or denied comments that were too negative. Perhaps it’s a great feat coming from a corporate background, but for someone of the younger Internet generation such as I it just sounds wrong that there is any such moderation at all. Lusk is even clear about the fact that they allow off topic comments, so them sorting through negative comments does not seem to be a readers’ service.

Something else that clings to my mind in Lusk’s answer is that he thinks of customer comments as something Southwest have published themselves, which, again this may just be me being younger, from an experienced Internet user is quite strange. Perhaps he would be more tolerant towards negative comments if he did not have that perception.

Anyhow, I believe that not allowing negative comments is just negative for the company in the long run. If people cannot vent their frustration on the company blog (where the company can respond) the frustration will be vented elsewhere. The whole idea of the blog was to get the consumers communicating where the company could participate, and it seems to me that it’s no less (probably more) important when dealing with small crises like the skirt issue.

Additionally, users who get their negative comments denied will most likely be even further agitated and continue to sack the company brand somewhere else. I believe such moderation behaviour in the long run results in a perception of the company as a kind of totalitarian firm unable to listen to criticism. Obviously that perception will be very limited if the blog and this moderation behaviour is limited in itself. The point is, however, that, no matter the scale, I think moderating negative customer comments it’s a bad way of handling the issue.