I think everyone has experienced some sort of difficulty communicating with a business at some point. Most often I see these sort of problems happen with larger businesses that experience a large customer pour in. I have had trouble before contacting stores and customer service in general because of high traffic times and crazy policy that often seems to work against the customer.
I would think that having social media would make it easier to get ones problems noticed and or solved. Mainly because the issue would no longer be private between the individual and business and is now visible for all to judge. This can result in the business gaining either a positive or a negative reputation depending on their timely response and manner of correcting the issue.
I personally have never contacted a business through social media. I always use the customer support page or number. Mostly because there can some information that I just don't want to be made public or put up for display. Contacting directly seems more personal and hopefully receives a speedier response.
If it were my business on social media, I would try to be as professional as possible. Responding in a timely manner and a way that respects the others opinion by not disregarding their concerns would be my attempts at a response.
My experiences have mostly been positive. I have yet to encounter any sort of disrespect from customer service and honestly felt like I was being helped. I know this is not always the case but hopefully it does become so.
After reading your post I started wondering how the large companies sift through their emails. I wonder how many disgruntled emails they receive on a busy day. The times I have contacted large businesses for problems or concerns I usually receive a reply within a few hours and at latest the next day.
ReplyDeleteSince you haven't encountered any problems with customer service in the past, you must be a nice person. I feel that if you treat people nice they are more likely to help you.
Hi, I basically have the same viewpoint about using social media to assist customers with problems or communication. Social media should provide another avenue to facilitate business communication.
ReplyDeleteIrene,
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with you that businesses need to be quick to respond. That is my biggest complaint. Facebook will show you if a business read your message, and often times, a business reads my message but never responds. It makes you feel unimportant and they lose your business. So businesses need to be better at being timely and making everyone feel important.