When, as a customer, companies fail me, I use my Twitter and Facebook accounts to attack and draw public attention to those businesses unable to deliver the customer experience (CX) I expect.
Businesses that run customer management operations to manage customer dissatisfaction typically give them no teeth nor any authority, as all they do is bring bad news to their managers.
Those working in such positions therefore suffer the pain of having to deal with the angry customers their employers have mistreated or ripped off, but are then ignored within their own workplaces.
Yet, this function should be among those requiring the greatest investment in a socially connected world. This is where every business’s future wisdom, wealth and potential advantage lies.
It is also where their reputation, and that of those running them, is most vulnerable.
So, here is how I put the boot in, when I am a disappointed customer.
And, I believe an angry customer should never let their target off the hook until their grievance is resolved.
Create the vehicle of complaint
Because we now have available the web, Twitter and Facebook, there need be no cost, other than time and mental energy, to mount a potent campaign of complaint against a bad company.
That said, to create and post my own tweets, because I know how and it makes my own work easier, I use a database, created in Apple’s Filemaker Pro application.
When composing, at the front of each tweet, I insert the @ symbol to ensure that when I post, my tweet reaches the attention of those paid to manage the social media affairs of the business in question. Then, I use the #company format to ensure it is searchable by others out on the web.
In addition, where there is an arbitration, ombudsman or media entity that needs to know what those companies in its industries are up to, I include that organisation’s Twitter handle with the @ symbol at the front of the message.
This step ensures my target knows it is being watched not just by the public that uses Twitter, Facebook or Reddit, but by those reporting on and monitoring its industry – those capable of shaping its reputation.
To illustrate this, here is a sample of a post I recently contributed to Twitter and Facebook concerning the disastrous service I have been given by Telstra, which is possibly, in my experience, Australia’s worst organised major business. (Optus is also a disaster, in my experience.)
SMALL BUSINESSES, YOU CAN’T AFFORD TO BECOME #Telstra VICTIMS. @Telstra @andy_penn @whirlpoolnetau How bizarre is #Telstra’s incompetence. SMS yesterday tells me I have no new charges and am in credit, but it is yet to connect us after we moved home-office. I moved Oct 30.
In this example, @andy_penn is the company’s managing director and @whirlpoolnetau, with 898,179 registered members, is arguably Australia’s most influential medium for those interested in understanding the experiences of others when choosing or considering switching a broadband service provider.
Importantly, my database also enables me to count the characters in each tweet or post as I type to ensure I don’t exceed Twitter’s 280-character limit. (It is also possible to use Google Docs to count a tweet’s characters by using its Tools > Word count function, and I am sure this functionality must be available in the many other word processing and similar applications I don’t use for this purpose.)
Using a “script” I have built in Filemaker (for which no raw coding is required, just the stitching together of a series of pre-built steps, I am then able, in sequence, to copy its content and automatically to launch the URL to which I wish to post it, so that all I have then to do when I arrive at the relevant site is to paste it.
My database creates a record of each post, with a timestamp, which enables me to reuse or modify a previous message and to track the precise timeline of my communications to or about a company, should I, as a journalist, wish to write a longer subsequent account.
Where necessary – such as when a social media representative tries to exert their power by ignoring, or worse, by attempting to bully me to keep me quiet (also useful when writing that longer account, as the timestamped record makes it hard for a representative to deny their presence at the wheel when dishing out rotten service to an aggrieved customer) – I then pursue an email correspondence with the identified directors or senior managers of the company in question.
Next step: Identify and approach the responsible managers in the company concerned
For this purpose, my database allows me to run a script that enables me to launch and run a search, by using Google, or similar, on the company and executive by creating a record of the organisation’s name plus job title using the format “LinkedIn Australia + organisation name + job title.”
As no executive can resist being found on LinkedIn, this inevitably brings up both the individual with whom I will need to communicate, as well as those with whom they work, and those listed in other organisations performing similar roles who are their peers in rival businesses. Of course, where companies name their internal leaders on their own web sites, this effort is made easier. However, the additional benefit of this is that it enables me to offer those competitors a competitive advantage by drawing attention to the CX weaknesses of the business that is my target.
In searching down such executives to make contact, I have also developed the scripting capability of my database to identify the email format a business uses. By launching Google and pasting into it the abbreviated form of its URL it uses as @companyname, I can discover that format by identifying individuals within a company whose personal details can be found on the web. Once I have the company email address format, I can then use this in subsequent emails to those who are my actual communication targets.
This can still be a laborious process. Accepting that companies often use their own address permutations within the @companyname format – with possible combinations including john.smith@companyname, johnsmith@companyname jsmith@companyname, for example – this may take some experimentation to get right, until an email address no longer bounces back. Even this doesn’t guarantee I’ve reached the target, of course, as individuals may filter all the emails they receive to ensure they don’t get anything unwanted.
Using the Telstra example above, knowing how many pissed-off customers it would have complaining, it used the “@team.telstra.com” format to deflect most users who wouldn’t have known this, even if they’d had their target’s name.
None of the above guarantees redress, of course, but if you don’t try to get the target business’s attention, you are never likely to get anything back.
But it does ensure the avoidance of formal complaint channels in which as a disappointed customer, you are almost certain to be ignored, fobbed off and almost certainly become more disappointed.
But, when you go public and get serious about alerting a company’s competitors to the opportunities this represents for them, there is a stronger possibility of creating positive change in its attitude towards you.