Recently, one of our employees endured a poor customer service experience.  So what to do?   Like many, they turned to social media to vent their frustrations in attempt to elicit a response from the company.  We also recognize that every story has three sides: both parties and the truth which lies somewhere in-between.  As a result, we will only focus on the response from the company in question and the lessons learned as they relate to customer service and social media.

Some pertinent background information:

The customer felt they were left stranded all day for a service appointment originally scheduled for the morning.  The customer felt the customer service representative did not allow them to ask questions related to the resolution of the situation.  And the customer did not appreciate having to call a third party in order to attempt to resolve the situation. Ultimately, the customer did not need to be on premise for the day which was counter to the information given at scheduling.

The company in question touts customer service as one of the differentiators for conducting business.  The company has a social media presence in terms of a FaceBook fan page and several Twitter accounts.

Since the FaceBook  FAN page did not allow customers to interact with the company, the customer resorted to tweeting.   The customer decided to tweet at least once a day until receiving a response OR getting tired of bashing the company. It took the company ONE WEEK to respond. The initial contact came from a Sr. Executive (name and position withheld without release permission). So after a few e-mails and phone calls from a senior leader of the company's customer service team, the customer was informed that the matter would be used as a learning experience for their representatives.

The key points of the learning experience:

1. Provide accurate appointment data such as time, presence required, and fees to the customer.
2. If the company can not provide #1, then provide flexibility to the customer such as a courtesy call before the appointment. If that's another company's responsibility - work out an agreement with the 3rd party because,
3. Don't make the customer call a third party. The company is the contact and should handle any communications with the 3rd party.
4. Ensure customer service representatives listen to the customer's concerns or questions. And ensure they don't provide vague unhelpful information.

Lessons from a social media perspective:

The rest of the story becomes a great case study for what to do/not do in terms of using social media for business development. About two hours after hanging up the phone with the Customer Service leader, the same Sr. Executive whom initiated contact sent a follow up e-mail to the customer. He kindly suggested the customer delete their tweets and any related posts. The customer kindly declined. Here are the lessons learned for utilizing Social Media as a business strategy.

1. If you are create a social media business presence, be prepared to respond via social media For example:
   • Visitors to your FaceBook page may not want to be a "fan" or "like" everything about your company. Provide contact information access to your company there OR allow people to post content.
   • If using a Twitter account for your company, be prepared to respond to tweets and questions in a timely fashion. If you are just squatting on the Twitter handle - disclose that.
2. Establish some sort of "brand reputation" or "monitoring" strategy. This can be an expensive solution such as Radian 6 or a cheap "roll your own" solution with Google Alerts. It's not hard and it will allow you to catch issues before they become serious problems.
3. Treat every faux-pas as a learning opportunity. In this case, the company did that. Unfortunately they dropped the ball when they requested it go away. Embrace your mistakes. Show the world your company cares and adapts to legitimate concerns of the customer. This will only help your brand and improve your transparency.