One of the most discouraging parts of trying to engage your customers on social media is the prevalence of internet trolls. No matter the size of your business, the strength of your content or the purity of your intentions, trolls find a way to shoehorn their opinions into your messaging.

We’re going to define trolls as people—statistically, they tend to be young men—who engage in provocative, bigoted behavior in order to elicit a reaction in an online forum. Briefly, psychologists have identified this behavior as a kind of sadism. It’s disgusting and stupid and way too prevalent in almost every online forum that allows both conversation and anonymity.

But before you label everyone who disagrees with you or has a negative opinion a troll, here’s Rule #1: Engage everyone as if their gripes are genuine. By taking the time to address their concerns, you can separate genuinely frustrated customers from trolls and, if you help genuine customers work through their issue, you can turn a negative experience into a loyal customer. (If you’re like the grocer Sainsbury, you can use a little humor and professional wrestling knowledge to make light of the situation and gain a few more followers.)

One way to do this is to follow the three A’s: Apology, Acknowledgement, and Action. Acknowledge the customer’s concern, apologize for their trouble and take action to fix the issue. Customers with real concerns will feel validated and you’ll positively influence how they feel about your brand.

If, however, you make the attempt to engage and the voice on the other end remains combative and offensive, there’s a good chance you’ve got a troll. Yuck.

Here’s Rule #2: Have a plan. This doesn’t have to mean a detailed, pages-long playbook. Instead, you should develop a way to consistently deal with trolls. This can include public gestures like posting rules for etiquette on your blog and online forums and more behind the scenes rules.

One such rule is determining when, or if, you should invite the troll to contact your business directly, possibly via email. This can be a very effective tool in ending a toxic discussion: Remember, a troll doesn’t want help; they want a reaction. By offering to “take this outside” you’re positively escalating the situation and taking them away from where others can see, removing their audience.

Rule #3 is, no matter how you choose to interact with trolls, make sure it suits your brand. Burger giant Wendy’s provides a great example.

If you’re Wendy’s and you’re reinforcing a new, playful image, you can lay such a savage burn on a troll that they delete not only their tweets but their whole account. Plus, that public torching can get you positive buzz from other customers.

Obviously, that approach won’t work for every brand (It would seem woefully off-brand for, say, Huggies to crush a new mom about diaper quality) but think creatively when determining how you deal with trolls.

Finally, trolls are the squeakiest of squeaky wheels. It’s likely there are plenty of people who appreciate your content. And if you have a clear plan in place that reflects your brand values, how you deal with trolls can be another way you positively interact with the targets who matter most.