I have encountered difficulty communicating with a business before. Back in 2003, I was getting ready to deploy to Iraq. There were so many things I have to take care of prior to my deployment. One of them was to notify my cell phone service provider that I will be gone and need to disconnect my services. Long story short, they did not want me to disconnect but offered to place my service on vacation. After many calls and visits to their office, I ended up deploying without completely disconnecting my cell phone service. I had to settle an agreement with them upon return because my cell phone bill was lets just say ridiculously high.
Social Media plays a huge role with business today. Customers can simply leave a review or a complaint on social media and this allows for businesses to hear the concerns of customers. Sometimes they reply to it and resolve or simply ignore it. For the most part, I have seen a lot of customer complaints resolved due to social media. Businesses can not afford negative reviews from customers on social media because it can affect their business as whole.
I wish social media was this powerful back in 2003, I would not have an issue with trying to get my services disconnected. One simple remark on Facebook or other social media outlets will get the attention of these huge corporations. If it was my business, I would work very hard to resolve a legitimate complaint or issue. So I could get a positive feedback and customers see that I do care. Negative comments will be addressed professionally. For positive comments I will reply with a "Thank you for your business and looking forward to seeing you again soon" message. Sometimes competitors deploy these tactics as far as negative reviews to sabotage the success of a rival company. People would have to pay attention to that because it is very common today.
I have to agree that social media plays a big role in a business. And its true how someone can leave bad or negative reviews to hurt business. I have seen an ex-employee of a business leave negative remarks about managers. It plays both ways.
ReplyDeleteJoseph, thanks for your service to our country, anyone who treats a service member like that will be on my do not support list. Sometimes I wonder why companies are on social media, as it can be a place for people to vent their grievances and not so much a good experience. While I was on the Target website, post after post were unhappy customers, but it did give Target a chance to publicly make an effort to resolve the issues. You also mentioned that competitors could use negative comments against them as well. Nevertheless, as a business you have to be on social media, because people sort of expect it, and are delegitimized if they don't. It reminds me of not having a website for your business, you pretty much have to have one of those.
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