Is social media enabling a culture of whiners? [link to post]

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RT @RedheadWriting This dude is on my blogroll >>> RT @JustinKownacki: Is social media enabling a culture of whiners? [link to post]

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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.

This dude is on my blogroll >>> RT @JustinKownacki: Is social media enabling a culture of whiners? [link to post]

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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.

Old/New Media Multiplying Whines?: [link to post]

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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.