Consumer Q&A and when to stop responding
Hello,
I was asked to put together a decision tree on addressing consumer's questions, especially as it refers to COAs and analytical results. I was wondering if someone has any examples to share or inputs. As many of you may know, these Q&A can go sideways very easily on social media, and we want to establish some procedures in addressing them.
For example, our products naturally contain caffeine, so we are frequently asked how much caffeine they have. This is measured by a third-party lab, and the values we share with consumers are based on the COAs.
If we are asked "How do you know that", we could easily answer. If they keep probing us, how do you address that? Are we required to show proof or copies of our COAs?
When should we stop engaging with this consumer and get our legal team involved, for example?
Thank you!
Why not develop a typical range from historical data? You could use this to answer customers questions and even potentially post it on your packaging to prevent so many customer inquiries.
We have one product that naturally contains caffeine. When customers ask about it, we just confirm that it contains caffeine and offer an alternative product, that has a similar flavor profile, but does not contain caffeine.
We sell flavors, so the answer to this inquiry could also be product dependent.
You can create a COA under your company letterhead, indicating beneath that it's based on analytical testing results. That should be satisfactory to most of customers. Anyways, there're always those questioning any information - so, even if you present them lab testing report they'd say "How do they know that?"
got a good chuckle out of that olenazh! There is always someone that will take it too far.
Sounds like there is a process here! Just missing the part where you're like, "here legal take it!"
- Consumer complains about caffeine.
- You respond with its testing by a 3rd party and this is the historical range for the past year or whatever time frame
- Consumer just simply does not believe you :(
- Explain how the 3rd party lab has no relation to you the company (even add the lab certification for testing ISO, etc.) You provide the COA (if legal allows) and then offer them a non-caffeine alternative (nice touch spidey!)
- Consumer is still haggling you!
- Respond with we are under FDA (or whichever) jurisdiction and have such and such 3rd party certification. Even throw in some of the regulations they can refer to.
- Consumer is still not satisified with response
- You're done - send it to legal to take care of.
Why not develop a typical range from historical data? You could use this to answer customers questions and even potentially post it on your packaging to prevent so many customer inquiries.
We have one product that naturally contains caffeine. When customers ask about it, we just confirm that it contains caffeine and offer an alternative product, that has a similar flavor profile, but does not contain caffeine.
We sell flavors, so the answer to this inquiry could also be product dependent.
You can create a COA under your company letterhead, indicating beneath that it's based on analytical testing results. That should be satisfactory to most of customers. Anyways, there're always those questioning any information - so, even if you present them lab testing report they'd say "How do they know that?"
got a good chuckle out of that olenazh! There is always someone that will take it too far.
Sounds like there is a process here! Just missing the part where you're like, "here legal take it!"
- Consumer complains about caffeine.
- You respond with its testing by a 3rd party and this is the historical range for the past year or whatever time frame
- Consumer just simply does not believe you :(
- Explain how the 3rd party lab has no relation to you the company (even add the lab certification for testing ISO, etc.) You provide the COA (if legal allows) and then offer them a non-caffeine alternative (nice touch spidey!)
- Consumer is still haggling you!
- Respond with we are under FDA (or whichever) jurisdiction and have such and such 3rd party certification. Even throw in some of the regulations they can refer to.
- Consumer is still not satisified with response
- You're done - send it to legal to take care of.
got a good chuckle out of that olenazh! There is always someone that will take it too far.
Sounds like there is a process here! Just missing the part where you're like, "here legal take it!"
- Consumer complains about caffeine.
- You respond with its testing by a 3rd party and this is the historical range for the past year or whatever time frame
- Consumer just simply does not believe you :(
- Explain how the 3rd party lab has no relation to you the company (even add the lab certification for testing ISO, etc.) You provide the COA (if legal allows) and then offer them a non-caffeine alternative (nice touch spidey!)
- Consumer is still haggling you!
- Respond with we are under FDA (or whichever) jurisdiction and have such and such 3rd party certification. Even throw in some of the regulations they can refer to.
- Consumer is still not satisified with response
- You're done - send it to legal to take care of.
Thank you all for your inputs! That's very helpful.