If you’ve spent considerable time and effort building a thriving community around your brand or you run a pure play community-oriented website, you know how difficult it can be managing all the different personalities and keeping things on the up and up.  Disputes are bound to occur and disgruntled community members are sure to wreak havoc on your otherwise happy environment.  While you may be inclined to let things slide or do everything in your power to woo an unhappy individual, it’s not always the right thing to do.  One bad apple CAN spoil the entire bunch or, more appropriately, spoil it for the rest of the bunch.

Within every community, there are going to be chronically unhappy people.  Some fall into the category of divas and divos, thriving off of drama and meddling into any muck they can; others exist to bitch, moan and complain simply for the sake of bitching, moaning and complaining – no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, you just can’t please them.  And for some crazy reason, they stick around, which is bad for you and your community.

Chronically unhappy people have a tendency to spread poison and drive down the positive atmosphere of a community.  More often than not, they run off other valuable community members – good apples who become fed up with the antics and drama – and fuel other bad apples to start misbehaving.  At the end of the day, despite their contributions and possibly money spent on purchasing your products or services, they cost more to maintain than they are worth.

As a Community Manager, you need to be able to distinguish between genuine complaints and issues and well-orchestrated drama being stirred up in the background.  And you need to have the guts to weed out the bad apples. Don’t be afraid to show people the virtual door, block/ban them from accessing your community platform or ask them to quit behaving in a manner unbecoming of the community. The dynamics are the same as raising a toddler – let the bad behavior continue and it will only repeat and, most likely, manifest into something out of control.

Take a cue from Herb Kelleher, the renowned founder of Southwest Airlines.  After countless complaints from a frequent flyer, the customer support staff could no longer take it and forwarded one of her many complaints to Herb. Realizing the toll it was taking on his employees and most likely other flyers, he decisively wrote back: “Dear Mrs. X, We will miss you. Love, Herb.”  The company never heard from her again.

Morale of the story: Don’t let the old adage, “The customer is always right” get the best of you or your extended community. Take a stand against the bad apples and let the positive energy flow!