It's funny, there are tremendous athletes out there who are great at what they do but can't manage to cook their own dinner. Companies are the same way. Some may be the best at marketing phones or providing customer service, but horrible at retaining quality employees. A company may be great at responding to negative feedback, but not great at changing the conditions that generate that feedback.
AT&T has found a unique way to market themselves by responding to negative feedback rather then deleting it. However, when comments are received at a rate of thousands an hour, is a well thought out critique of a problem given any more credibility then "AT&T Sucks!"? Probably not, but that does not hurt AT&T's image because from a consumer's viewpoint, all feedback is being responded to.
It's reasonable to expect that all customers want their feedback to be heard, but very few comments will result in actual changes within a company. Therefore if a comment is disrespectful, illegible, and does not present a specific issue or call for a specific change, responding to it is a waste of resources. Also there is an issue of companies (such as BP) protecting their brand and their image. If a luxury hotel features a website with customer testimonials, what incentive would there be to post about the negative experiences customers have had? As mentioned in the article, these negative comments will find their way to consumers in other ways, on other websites. The very idea of a hotel featuring a link that states: "Read our rotten testimonials!" is laughable.
Every company has negative feedback, and some choose to respond to it publicly, while others respond privately or not at all. I do not think publicizing negative comments will be helpful to many companies, but perhaps since the concept is so new it will prove beneficial to companies such as AT&T.
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