27 Jul 10 Ask And Ye Shall Receive: Complain on Twitter

I first noticed how effective a Twitter complaint could be some time ago.  I was casually discussing a problem I was having with a WordPress plugin ‘SezWho‘.  To be honest, I wasn’t terribly fair; I tweeted something along the lines of “this plugin sucks” when in actual fact, the problem was most likely caused by conflict with some other plugin and not really a problem with SezWho at all.  I was surprised that within hours of making my comment, SezWho contacted me via Twitter and went out of their way to resolve the problem.  I apologised to them for jumping to conclusions and I was very pleased and impressed by their diligence and professionalism.

Many companies now have a social media presence.  If you have a complaint, you can easily find their social media profile and complain to them directly.  Just Google “so and so on Twitter” or “so and so on Facebook” and you’ll find the company you’re looking for very quickly.  Don’t make the mistake I inadvertently did: do a little research before you complain to make sure the problem is actually the fault of the company in question.

Dealing with complaints on social networking sites has become an important public relations exercise.  Many companies employ a ‘social networking team’ to deal with such complaints.  Dealing with a problem positively can turn bad publicity into good and an angry customer can change from a bad mouther to a singer of praises.  As is usually the case, the squeaky wheel gets the grease, and if you are dissatisfied you might as well get some grease. For example:

(more…)

Tags: Facebook, Google, SezWho, Social media, Social network, Social network service, Telstra, twitter