I must receive at least ten “someone is saying a really bad thing about you” direct message tweets a day. My assumption is that they are from hacked accounts of my followers and there really isn’t a bad mouthing movement going on. If only 1-800Flowers was in the same boat.
It appears there was a bit of a flower delivery glitch on Valentines Day yesterday, and unhappy customers have taken to social media in droves to publicly voice their anger, and they are NOT holding back…
The 1-800Flowers Twitter and Facebook Page are covered with nasty messages.
Now this is an extreme example, and no doubt that 1-800Flowers customer service is trying their best to remedy the situation and keep up with replies, but short of a PR intervention along the lines of BP and the oil spill in the gulf, it certainly can be assumed none of these people will be using this company again.
During a webinar I attended recently presented by Mari Smith (she is awesome and you should know who she is, especially if you have a Facebook Business page!), she stated the #1 reason companies don’t want to get involved with social media is the FEAR of public negative comments. While 1-800Flowers is currently experiencing a nightmare, we are all in the customer service business in some way or another and negative comments and problems to resolve are part of our lives.
I think you learn more about someone by the way they handle issues than you do if everything runs smoothly. In almost all of the recommendations or referrals I give for resources I mention something about how they resolve problems, rectify mistakes, and deal with upset clients – based on first hand knowledge since I am usually the customer in the scenario. However, I also have clients (either through freelance or ad agency) to answer to who are looking for me to resolve problems, rectify mistakes, and deal with them in an empathetic manner when they are freaking out.
The truth is that Valentines Day is a HUGE flower day. For the hundreds of negative comments 1-800Flowers is receiving via social media, thousands and thousands of others are quietly enjoying the scent of flora in their homes and offices. We can’t see all those tweets and posts about the lovely bouquet they received yesterday because they aren’t aggregated anywhere like the negative ones are.
So what is the moral of the story?
One bad day, or messed up project doesn’t tell the whole story of who a person or company is. Resolving it publicly can only HELP YOU, if of course you can turn the 🙁 upside down 🙂 … Don’t fear the negative comment. Open up your Facebook walls so everyone can post and really show people who you are when issues arise. Invite critique and ask how you can do a better job. Get testimonials from clients that had problems you fixed, and use them as references. Talking about your excellent customer service is one thing, showing it is another.
