HOW NOT TO HANDLE NEGATIVE FEEDBACK
Using “School of Rock” as an example (VK link; for readers outside Russia: VK is a major Russian social network, roughly comparable to a Facebook-style platform in how communities and comment threads work).
Ethical disclaimer:
I’m pointing to the source where I found this example because it’s already public. Any SMM specialist or paid-traffic manager (targeting specialist / performance marketer), or anyone working in this niche, can stumble upon it — will stumble upon it — and may have already stumbled upon it today.
Short preface:
Our story starts here.
But first — let’s meet them. Mirror neurons are people. People are mirror neurons.
You can read about mirror neurons on Wikipedia:
Even though the function is still being studied, certain mechanisms behind our reactions and learning are already explained pretty well through the mirror-neuron theory.
By the way, a great lecture on this topic: (Russian-language; for non-Russian readers, you can still watch for tone + examples, or use auto-translate captions.)
Now let’s move to the story:
Here’s what’s important to understand at the start, the moment negativity shows up.
First: what’s written with a pen can’t be chopped out with an axe. Don’t delete it. Otherwise you’ll fall into the “Streisand effect”.
So you need to work this negativity through.
Second: negativity is hard to carry inside. The aggression required to leave a negative review is a resource-burning emotion.
So remember: the person who left the negative review is no longer in the exact same state they were in before and at the moment of writing it.
They poured it out. Inside, it’s either empty now — or noticeably less full.
Which means: if you respond to negativity with empathy, politeness, and real regret, then:
- You look достойно — solid and decent — to everyone watching.
- You “close the wound” for that client and increase the chance they return to the brand’s ecosystem.
Third: each of us lives in our own world of interpretations. A person may genuinely feel that someone looked at them sideways and spoke badly about them.
And they may not be imagining it.
So what was the reply to the girl, Alisa? Honestly — it was pretty good:
Do it like this. And what comes next — don’t. You already understand that if it ended here, there wouldn’t be an article.
First — the flowers:
On one hand, asking for a detailed reply is cool. But it’s better done via DMs. In DMs a person is more relaxed, feels more private. Here it’s a public request and a public “tell everyone”. Not only does Alisa need to remember everything — she needs to write it while being watched. That’s a double emotional cost. They’re not so much helping her help the venue with feedback as they are getting in the way.
Also: in DMs you can ask for a voice message, and a person can tell you much more than by text because speech is more natural.
I don’t know Alisa’s psyche. People are different. But the structure of this request generates discomfort more than it creates a space for repair.
Alisa found the strength to answer, but not exactly in the requested format:
Kostya parries:
Great thing for competitors to know — a flawless plan, as reliable as a Swiss watch. But personally, I felt genuinely uncomfortable about the story this starts to build.
Because I associated myself more with Alisa than with Kostya. As a targeting specialist, feelings and переживания (emotional experience) of the audience matter more to me than the comfort of the business owner. The better I understand those feelings, the better I build creatives and content plans.
So who will potential customers of the venue associate themselves with?
That’s the side their mirror neurons will reproduce.
Now — the berries:
Alisa, naturally, couldn’t provide a lot of “useful data” in this setup. The task was made as hard as possible for her: not only is it a public request, but she’s also under the microscope of their CRM system:
So she basically referenced another customer’s comment rather than giving an introspective account of her own experience.
Kostya didn’t keep us waiting:
The difference between messages is 10 minutes. I doubt he read deeply — he already had an opinion. It feels like he spent those ten minutes writing the reply.
And the message is not “handling negative feedback”. It’s a public flogging.
Now it’s obvious why he asked her to describe the negative experience publicly.
The gist of his words, as I interpret it:
We’re great, everything here is done right, and you’re the villain because I didn’t like how, when, and where you expressed your negativity. You should have messaged me in DMs, even though we have a reviews thread. And I don’t like that your review isn’t “constructive” in the format I personally prefer.
Alisa turned out to be no pushover:
You can see she didn’t like the public flogging and decided to defend herself publicly too. I have no idea what actually happened there — maybe Kostya is right 100,500 times — but emotionally I’m already rooting for Alisa.
No, Alisa — you’re still the villain.
Looks like Alisa understood the ROI of this discussion and tries to shut it down:
They could have used the chance and stopped. Well… then this article wouldn’t exist.
Oh wow. Now it’s not only Alisa who’s “bad” — the kind administrator will be punished remembered for the gesture toward the customer too.
So that nobody else dares to help customers — and everyone would suffer, including Alisa.
Beat your own so strangers are afraid. I’m getting “Vietnam flashbacks” from the Russian cultural flavour of abuse dynamics.
(For readers outside Russia: I’m not claiming this is uniquely Russian — abusive power dynamics exist everywhere. I’m pointing at the specific “tone” that many post-Soviet people instantly recognise.)
Alisa stands up for herself, and I’m rooting for her:
Maybe she already relaxed and decided to poke him with a stick — because it worked:
How I understood the gist:
No-no-no, I’m right and you’re all lying! We’re good, and you’re the villain!
Are you tired yet? While preparing this, I got pretty drained. It felt shorter when it was happening.
But it’s moving toward the ending!
Did you notice how Alisa writes a couple of words — and Kostya surrounds her from every side with walls of text?
The gist in my interpretation:
I know we’re good, period. Because I understand and know so much. Now I’ll explain everything to you — and again inform you that you’re the villain.
Alisa seems to have understood the pattern long ago and just wants to end the skirmish. All of this happens on February 1st, over the course of a day.
Kostya in his usual style:
The gist:
We’re so good that we’re actually bad.
Takeaways:
Out of 18 messages in the thread, only two were substantial.
The first two.
All the other 16 were not handled well. Kostya may be right 100,500 times, Alisa could even be a planted troll who came to mess up the reviews. That happens — especially on big map/review aggregators like Yandex Maps, Yandex Market, Google Maps, 2GIS. (For readers outside Russia: Yandex Maps/Market and 2GIS are large local services similar in role to Google Maps + review platforms.)
Empathy will split in half. Business owners reading this may lean toward Kostya — they have more identity-points that make them see themselves in him.
Potential customers will likely end up in the other camp.
And you will never know exactly how many leads you lost. One thing is clear: this behaviour doesn’t help. Kostya criticised MegaFon for this exact approach to negative feedback — where a brand “can swallow it”. But maybe it’s the other way around? Maybe MegaFon became such a large company precisely because it handles negativity as if it “swallows” it. (For readers outside Russia: MegaFon is a major Russian telecom operator.)
Olya at the start of the thread acted correctly — why did everything keep going after that?
As I understand it, Kostya is the founder/owner. He cares and it hurts. But you probably have a hired admin, Olya — why interfere with her doing the job properly?
And this repeats across the entire “reviews” topic.
When everything is good — Kostya thanks and that’s it.
When it’s not so good — Kostya starts public floggings. This is less about “reviews”, and more like Kostya’s personal “War and Peace” — his own inner special operation. (For readers outside Russia: “special operation” is a loaded phrase in the Russian media space; here it’s used as a metaphor for “someone turns feedback into a personal campaign”.)
One last thing:
Kostya — if you’re reading this thread, I doubt no one has ever criticised your way of handling negativity.
Either this is your conscious choice, and you’re trying to do black PR.
Or you didn’t listen to criticism from your circle.
Or you built a circle that doesn’t criticise you.
Yes — right now I’m acting as an agent of spreading this information. You could say I’m also arranging a kind of “public flogging” of you and your venue.
I’m doing it consciously for two reasons:
- I found an interesting case to describe for my content plan.
- I’m on the customers’ side — I’m supposed to be there. Every project I work with finds value in my soul in one form or another. So I want my clients to handle negativity better. That’s how I connect two lonely things faster: a business and its audience.