Don’t Tweet If You Are Bad!

I just saw a twitter account that had nothing on it apart from @mentions regarding poor customer service experiences.

This was followed by a load of impersonal comments saying “I’m sorry you feel that way please email us at xzy@blahblah.. or log your issue at domainname.com/issues”

This type of twitter timeline gives a big loud message that the company has a bad reputation for customer service!

Now if you are in an organisation that has an embarrassing ratio of poor customer experiences versus good ones then please remember that a twitter account with just grumbles, complaints and frustrated customers will advertise that fact!

It needs to be dealt with not re-directed somewhere else.

Tweet such as “I’m sorry you feel this way but please raise the issue with us another way” when out of balance with good feedback is just like saying “We are on twitter to tell you to shut up and don’t talk about your issues here”.

If it is balanced with good feedback then people reading the twitter timeline are likely to feel that the organisation is transparent and trustworthy and bad feedback alongside the good is to be expected.

Of course I can understand the organisation wanting to catch and redirect the complaints but when this is so obvious and out of balance with good feedback it doesn’t portray a very good image.

The real point with the timeline that I viewed is that I had no idea the company I was looking at had such a bad reputation until I looked at their twitter account. This brings me onto my second point and that is why advertise how bad you are unless you want more people to know?

For any organisations out there who have been persuaded into thinking a twitter account for purely customer service issues is a good idea let me tell you that it really isn’t a good idea and I’m sure you are feeling the pain of this decision.

Customers want resolutions whether that is by phone, by tweet, by email, by ticketing systems or online chat or by carrier pigeon. It’s the resolution that is needed and that does not take priority over the method of communication.

It’s a much better idea to actually sort the dissatisfaction issues out at root cause rather than try to catch and re-direct them via twitter and hope that nobody notices.

What do you think? Are you put off by seeing a twitter feed of bad service mentions? Is it enough that the company is on twitter?

Customer Service Tips, Social Media, Twitter

Customer Service, Social Media, Tweet Popular