The PR handling at UK supermarket Waitrose has come under fire this afternoon for its failure to respond to comments on its Facebook page about the treatment a woman and her disabled child received in-store.

The first posting on the story occurred some 19 hours ago. Waitrose commented on the posting, saying that it was trying to find out “exactly what happened between the customers involved”, but hasn’t commented since then on a number of posts on the page asking for explanations. The company has however responded to posts on the page that don’t concern the matter, such as one woman’s request that boxes of a dozen large eggs be stocked in her local branch.

The company’s social media silence has been picked up on across social networks, and its failure to respond publicly to the allegations beyond its initial action has drawn strong criticism. Companies such as Toyota and ITV have previously found that delayed responses to social media crises can have long term consequences for a company's brand.

UPDATED: Waitrose's Twitter account has weighed in on the issue, responding to customer's comments by stating that it is taking the issue seriously and speaking directly to the customers involved.

Simon Collister, consultancy director at We Are Social, points out that the negative comments on Facebook are being counteracted in part by the supportive comments that others are posting. "There's clearly a strong community that Waitrose has developed through social media," he says. "The problem is that now the story is out there it's damaging the company's reputation, even though it's not a straightforward case. Waitrose could have dealt with this by setting out a clear moderation policy from the start, and setting up internal workflows to cope with crises. But Facebook is, to an extent, a walled garden - it's quite a self-contained crisis."

Communications consultant Stuart Bruce says that this highlights how difficult it is to use Facebook for issues management. "The volume of comments on the page makes it extremely hard to follow. One sensible thing Waitrose is doing is to repost its response, as if they did it just once and left it then it could be easily missed. A quick video response saying they are investigating and that they are sorry but it will take some time would perhaps make its written response look more personal."