I love The New York Times. I really like the writing of David Segal. I didn’t like Segal’s “Soapbox” column last week where he added the muscle of his newspaper to one person’s battle with T-Mobile. (Full disclosure: we represent another mobile firm).
Customer service according to The Office (click to play)
Anyway, long story short, his subject complains about a never opened T-Mobile account for which she is being charged.
Segal gets in touch with T-Mobile on her behalf, and the PR team at the phone company “sprang into action.” Segal wonders in the piece why (presumably all) ”companies seem to rouse themselves only after they get a tap on the shoulder from someone in the news media.” He does a bit of a tap himself around the facts: The customer complained. The company asked for some information. She didn’t provide the information, and the collection firm pushed on.
I have often pushed back on bloggers, Tweeters and Facebook status updaters who perform elaborate public whines or rants over customer service issues that they should have solved themselves. Caveat emptor has never been more appropriate than in the brave new world of the internet, yet many seem to think that it’s possible to fly through life unscathed by the unscrupulous or even dented a little by a bad customer experience.
I am impressed with consumer companies that are facilitating good customer experiences by using social media. Dell was featured in a guest post on Mary Ellen Slayter’s Smart Blog on Social Media recently. Matt Jurmann from Chromatics lists a number of good ones, also, in the form of case studies. Maybe Price and Jaffe have it right in The Best Customer Service is No Service.
Maintaining customer satisfaction has never been more important, as Alison says in her Better Business Bureau video/blog post. As our client notes, “you can’t make all customers satisfied all the time.” The crying of “wolf” over things that can be resolved with a little conversation, though, is troubling. Social networks have the potential to facilitate the resolution of issues; not just amplifying the whining or the shouting.
A more recent look at the multiplier effect of “badvocates” is Laurie Burkitt’s post on Forbes just this week. She repeats a Weber Shandwick stat, saying that power writers like @dmscott represent 20% of the world’s adult population online and each one reaches an estimated 14 people with his or her critiques. Powerful, most often principled, these critics, though, may be encouraging less sophisticated copycats
What do you think? Are we too quick to resort to the online rant or a call to Mother NYT? Is the age of social media encouraging whining? What is the appropriate role of customer service in the era of such transparency when the first complaint can carry such weight?
Michael, to not look like a linkbaiter, I could simply copy-paste my entire post and put it up here, but it’s simply is too long. So *deep breath*,
http://itwofs.com/beastoftraal/2009/10/13/whine-flu/
I was exploring social media whining from the perspective of how it would look in real life and suddenly…it stops looking appealing anymore! The point (summary) however is, you’d perhaps do better to exhaust private, one-on-one modes first before taking your acrimony public – since that shows solid intent that you want the issue sorted out first and making it a public drama is merely incidental to the first requirement going haywire.
I agree with your larger point that not all consumer complaints are justified, and some people may be too quick to escalate them to social media. A good example is the blogger who complained that the TSA “took” her child, only to be contradicted by videotapes of the incident. See http://bit.ly/2WnaYH
But in the T-Mobile situation you mention, the company didn’t ask for just “some information” — they asked for a Social Security Number, which is pretty powerful stuff. The consumer was right not to give it, and the company shouldn’t have required it — as in fact they didn’t, once the media got involved. So I’d have to say that at least in this case, both the consumer’s behavior and their escalation to the media were quite well justified.
David: Thanks for the comment. I tried not to rant too much about David Segal’s column in the Times, and I understand the information security issue. Keep in mind, too, that the company did not ask for the whole SS number, and that they did have a legit order for service — from someone. I ask the question in a more general way because I worry about a trend where every complaint becomes a cause. Appreciate your point. Thank for reading! I am going over to your blog.
Coversation also at Pitch Engine on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/newsArticle?viewDiscussion=&articleID=81692310&gid=91346&split_page=1&report%2Esuccess=6I18F62xLQrgMSYXO4xSEFE8yPuZwddDznv5YvetGcD1KePeFO95vKetfZ_fzRHpuA#comment_3
As with most social media problems, this one will be self-correcting over time. If the level of whining escalates, companies will learn to tune out social media as a lost cause, and customers with legitimate concerns will have to find another, more proactive way to obtain satisfaction (and vent their frustrations).
Any medium can be hijacked by the unsatisfied. And the immediacy and anonymity of social media means complainers will make faster use of Twitter than they will of a confrontational phone call (which might actually solve their problem).
Related: although social media is being used to “hold companies accountable,” sooner or later, smart companies will find a way to hold customers accountable as well. It doesn’t take a genius to sniff out the serial complainers and the chronically unsatisfied. Eventually, the same tools we use to bitch about our lousy cell phone service may be used to help companies decide which of our complaints are more legitimate than others.
There are two sides to the coin and you pose excellent questions. Here are my thoughts on this new age of “whiners” in social media.
Corporate customer service has become accustomed to “acceptable delay.” You send an email, wait 24-72 hours (because they tell you that’s normal) for an automated response and then you get some boilerplate email back that doesn’t answer your question. Then you have to pick up the phone. You tried it their way and it didn’t work. Annoying.
For companies who engage in social media, there is no “acceptable delay.” If you’re on Twitter or Facebook, your audience thinks you’re listening. That’s not always the case. If companies aren’t listening via social media and just broadcasting, that’s a huge miss and frankly, they deserve all the online flack they get.
Yes, many people do cry wolf in social media outlets, but they’re also the ones that will stand at the checkout at Target and bitch endlessly for no reason as well. While you can’t dictate common sense, you can appreciate it when you see a well-managed (and documented) online campaign from a disgruntled customer.