

Why you should not use Twitter for corporate customer service - rangibaby
http://www.theawl.com/2012/12/why-you-should-not-use-twitter-for-corporate-customer-service-a-cautionary-tale

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snprbob86
Maybe I'm being insensitive, but why would anyone burst in to tears for making
a reasonable request that _indirectly_ causing somebody to have a crappy day
at work? Furthermore, it's not even apparent that she really did ruin the day
of these delivery folks. They probably got paid nicely to go through all that
trouble. The fact that it took all day for the social media team to find
somebody willing to go that extra mile implies to me that there were likely
several people who turned down that sale/delivery.

Even if they were pressured in to that delivery by some contract or power-
play, it's not her fault that she demanded quality service. Twitter et al are
making companies accountable for their shortcomings. As a result, the
treatment of customers is improving steadily across many industries. Like with
anything, sometimes you need to break a few eggs to make an omelet.

~~~
wisty
Because she forced good people, people like her, to do a late-night delivery.

If it was some young guy (preferably with tattoos) on minimum wage, she'd
probably have been a lot less upset.

Seeing people doing jobs that aren't stereotypical can trigger cognitive
dissonance (is that the right term?). Some people justify "demeaning" jobs
because only certain people (men, women, young people, old people, poor
people, immigrants) do them. When someone who doesn't fit the stereotype does
the job, it creates dissonance.

~~~
raverbashing
Yes, but that's not her fault

Resources management is a company problem. They could have proposed another
time for her that wouldn't imply extra hours

They (the company) chose to go the extra mile and should be commanded. That
extra mile between employers and the company should be settled between
themselves.

Well, if my employer makes me do night deliveries without compensation of any
sort I start to look at other options.

~~~
brazzy
> They (the company) chose to go the extra mile and should be commanded.

No, it didn't, and it shouldn't. The company chose to have cheap but shitty
service and give unsustainable special treatment to irate customers who might
create PR problems, while service for those without a Twitter account and
entitlement issues remains shitty.

Actually everytime I hear a story like this, my opinion of the company in
question goes _down_ a lot. Good customer service doesn't mean having a
separate department that can order around the peons to work overtime handling
special cases. It means fixing processes so that those special cases don't
occur.

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cowholio4
Best part of the article:

"Wait your turn, like everybody else, like we all learned in elementary
school. It's much more satisfying in the end.

Unless the corporation you're going after is Time Warner Cable, in which case
you should use every tool available to you to take those f-ing mobsters down."

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saosebastiao
Now for a reason why you shouldn't use it to respond to customer complaints:
The second word gets out that using Twitter gets you better customer service,
everyone will use Twitter. And unlike the occasional good PR that comes with
Twitter, you now have a reputation for not doing things right in the first
place. Availability bias is a bitch.

~~~
sharkweek
Nitpicking but... I'd say responding to complaints on Twitter is a great idea,
but just to show you're listening and then as an arrow pointing to the correct
channel for resolving an issue

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jacalata
This is self indulgent crap. Where's the bit where she tweeted back to Home
Depot saying that she thought it was terrible to make their employees do that?
Is she afraid that doing that would cause someone in the chain to get fired
for having upset her?

~~~
daurnimator
It's this blog-post.

Not everything can fit in 140 characters; and you can bet this gets wider
readership than a tweet.

~~~
jacalata
No, it isn't. This blog post says "don't ask for customer service! The people
who respond might be crazy and make someone do something ridiculous that you
weren't specifically requesting!" What the tweet or a blog post aimed at
solving the problem, would say is "Wow Home Depot, I can't believe you treat
your employees so badly! I expect you to treat your employees well, and
especially to prioritise doing so over meeting ridiculous customer service
requests! How you treated your employees has affected my willingness to buy
things from you in x way, and I hope that this reaction influences you to make
a different decision next time. To other companies listening - I would prefer
that you prioritise your employees over ridiculously good customer service,
and will make purchasing decisions based on that where I can."

------
maguay
Funny thing is, I originally joined Twitter to try to get customer support
when it looked like the company I was trying to contact (Vonage, if I remember
right) was replying in minutes on Twitter when their email support never got
answered (and phone support kept getting rerouted to people who didn't know
any answers). Then, I used to do tech support for Metalab's Flow, and we used
Twitter for customer support via Desk.com daily. It works good for rapid
response to simple questions in my experience, and I'd recommend companies
take advantage of it. There's no reason Tweeting for customer support is more
entitled or demanding than seeking customer support via any other means.

------
jib
Proactively communicating incidents and outages on Twitter is an excellent use
of the service.

Handling individual contacts is a practice only marketing guys like I think.
You can create temporary appearance of good service that way (if you are
lucky), but not build a solid reputation for good service - you run into the
problems others have pointed out below, selection bias, neglecting your more
effective support channels etc.

This looks like a company misunderstanding how to use social media to me -
someone created a social media team and gave them free reign to "solve
problems via social media".

It reminds me of a time I attended a sales presentation of a CRM with the
sales guy bragging how a company used their twitter contact routing to
identify the guy as a top influencer (via Klout or something) and had the
chairman of their multi-billion company call back some celebrity who was
complaining about the service he received with about some standard problem he
was having with their service (it was something very commoditized, broadband I
think). The customer service guys attending the presentation didn't understand
why they thought it was a good use of technology or time - that isnt the way
to build customer trust, making sure the problem was fixed by the first guy
the celebrity contacted is how you build trust.

------
zainny
Personally, I've found twitter to be hugely useful for getting responses from
companies and because of this I don't plan to stop using it. Often I've found
the response time I get on twitter is far far better than what I would get if
I phoned in (few mins - hour) or emailed (never) the customer support
department.

It's one of the few ways that new social media is actually providing value for
me.

Some specific examples where I can recall using it: (1) Engaging the Microsoft
developer team to fix up an issue with my account (2) Engaging Air Canada to
ask about using my Aeroplan points (3) Engaging Commonwealth Bank to say
thanks for great customer service and recommending someone I did deal with in
person at a branch (to which they replied they would pass along the
commendation).

All times I had a faster and more satisfactory engagement than if I had used
phone, email, etc (as I'm reminded when I have to revert to these methods)...

~~~
daurnimator
I've had the opposite experience:

Nearly every time I tweet at a company they either don't reply, or ask that I
call them instead.... WHY YOU DO YOU EVEN HAVE A TWITTER ACCOUNT?

~~~
codeka
How many followers do you have? I find the number of followers you have
directly corresponds to how successful using twitter is for support.

It's only if you have 100+ followers, that companies are more likely to go out
of the way to help, in my experience.

------
drucken
Not what I was expecting at all! I was expecting an article about customer
service fragmentation by giving disproportionate emphasis on social media
rather than brand-specific infrastructure - something I have seen and
experienced often.

That said, while I understand her emotional perspective, I tentatively
disagree with the sentiment. If the use of social media does produce
efficiency gains that would otherwise have been difficult or impossible to
attain, then everyone benefits, including the company gaining a competitive
advantage, perhaps ala Theory of Constraints.

Of course, there is more than one way to use social media. The company could
have used it only for information broadcasts. I presume if they set it up to
actively seek to improve their customer service, then they are happy to accept
all the consequences for it too.

------
hayksaakian
I don't think this situation is unique to twitter. Any person with a
sufficiently large public following will instantly receive special treatment
and pandering behavior (like Home Depot in this case). Joe Average won't get
his backordered AC by 11pm on the same day if he complains on twitter.

------
Crake
From the comment section: "Oh my god, New York is going to eat this nice lady
alive."

It's not a problem with twitter, it's a problem with the store you're buying
from. Next time buy your ac unit from a place that treats their employees
right. If you want to take an even longer view of this, you'll probably run
smack into the economy at large and the desperate situation that minimum wage
big box stores can force upon their employees as a result of the unemployment
rate. They treat you like dirt and hold you responsible for failing to meet
goals that were never possible in the first place.

An alternate view TFA could take would be that since you've discovered that
public complaining via irascible tweet seems to be effective--tweet again
about your horror regarding their treatment of their employees. There's no
reason they shouldn't have some sort of infrastructure in place to deal with
this sort of thing if they are going to attempt immediate reparations brought
to their attention via twitter.

The store could have offered over time pay to stronger employees willing to
volunteer the next day, perhaps; the salaried managers likely didn't receive
any compensation for their after hours efforts. I'm sure the AC unit could
have waited another 24-48 hours.

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marcuspovey
I've had a fair few experiences with various companies where normal channels
fail and the only way to get prompt action is to use twitter, or a similar
public channel.

It's a pretty sorry state where the only way to be taken seriously is to make
a public fuss rather than just having a quiet chat like two grown up human
beings. Every time I'm forced to do it I feel like the kid throwing a tantrum
in the snack aisle.

Hell, it gets results, but it degrades all involved.

------
sebastianmarr
First of all, the title of this post is pretty misleading. From reading it, I
assumed some privacy nightmare story.

But the point the author makes is great: Think about the price of the customer
service you receive. You're getting that service for free, so someone else has
to pay for it.

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jbrooksuk
I used Twitter in my previous job to answer questions that customers or
potential customers may have. It was a quick and easy solution, especially
where more than the intended recipient can see it.

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treskot
The other side of the story. I would call it- "Great customer support".

Why didn't they wait for delivering it next (early) morning? Would that make a
huge difference?

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aaroncray
So she is upset she got what she wanted? I don't understand women at all...

~~~
wmf
More likely she was upset after discovering the human cost of getting what she
wanted.

~~~
alan_cx
Apple, Dell, etc like cheap Chinese labour which is at least controversial
(some would use works like "slave"), and all customers care about is label
price. In the end, that's a human cost. I find it a bit weird that this is the
breaker for her.

Sad, but human cost is dirt cheap. I'd hate to think human cost really means,
"my" people's human cost, but the cost to "those" people is irrelevant.

~~~
ceejayoz
Foxconn workers don't show up on your doorstep looking exhausted after a
shift.

