Social Networking and Negative Comments

The face of business is changing and social networking websites are on the forefront of the revolution. Businesses have found a new way to interact with million of their customers and this, like all customer service related interactions, has has created good, bad, and ugly. This blog specifically references the latter two and two schools of thought on how to deal with the negativity. The two opinions are that of intervention and interruption. Intervention is responding to comments and interruption is ignoring and removing any negative posts. In my opinion both approaches have pros and cons. Intervention is clearly easier to swallow from a consumers standpoint. We would all rather be responded too instead of being deleted. This gives companies an opportunity to address customer complaints and let them know what they are doing to correct the issue. From the companies standpoint, this can be enormously costly and futile to many ends, as not all complaints are working towards a solution because many of these companies must have the greater good and wall street in mind. Cletus in rural Arkansas may be livid about poor cell service but his carrier can't justify millions of dollars worth of towers in his woods if there are not millions of dollars worth of customers to pay for the improvements. Furthermore, many customers are shortsighted and refuse to accept any consolment that does not immediately rectify their issue. So is the only solution interrupting the comments with the delete button or not allowing comments to be posted at all? Occasionally yes, all the time... probably not. In my opinion a companies policies should be a reflection of their customer service principles. That's why companies like AT&T who can be easily substituted with Sprint, T-Mobile or Cricket are going to spend the extra time and money improving customer satisfaction because that is what is going to affect their bottom line most. Companies like McDonalds are not about customer service to their core. When I walk into McDonalds i don't search for a smile and a warm hello, i want a Coke and a warm hamburger! So if they don't let me post on their Facebook wall so be it, chances are i will be in the drive-through anyway next time I long for a Shamrock shake in less than two minuets for less than three dollars. If you disagree with a companies customer service practices than exercise your right to choose and let free enterprise and capitalism punish them in the long run. Understand you get what you pay for and companies are going to invest their money where it is going to pay them the most dividends and for many companies that is not in responding to Facebook posts. If you disagree feel free to let the CEO of McDonalds you want him to personally respond to your Facebook complaints and are also willing to pay $3 for your hamburger that used to be $1 and I guarantee he will friend request you in a heartbeat!...that is of course assuming the other 10 million customers agree.