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Is ignoring a Twitter complaint like hanging up the phone on your customers?
You wouldn't hang up on your customers when they call you or ignore their complaints via email, so why do so many companies continue to ignore complaints via Twitter or Facebook?
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4 Answers
From my perspective, it is more like not answering the phone at all, than like hanging up.
There might be several reasons for this behavior, none of which seem to be valid excuses:
1. lack of staff dedicated to monitoring Twitter & FB - combined with lack of training in how to listen for complaints not directed specifically to the company's @ brand account.
2. lack of simple integration with ticketing system. Too lazy to manually open a ticket.
3. misconception - "Well, if they really have a complaint, they'll call/email through 'official' channels.
I'm sure there are more we could all list, but as noted above, none of these seem to be valid, and all are quite easily addressed with a little strategic thinking and staff training.
I fully agree with Kelly Craft that it is more like not answering the phone at all, than like hanging up.
@Kelly, I think I agree with you. Ignoring a complaint seems to be par for the course right now. I had the worst of all customer experiences with verizon wireless last week: telling them I would not say anything in a blog or tweet until they had 72 hours to correct their fraudulent ways. But when it is a company that big, do they really care? Only when the groundswell picks it up , as with the guitar broken by UA, when shame colors their face, do they seem to care. It is sad
Ignoring a Twitter complaint is not like hanging up on a customer, but a decision which channels to monitor. Ideally, we would like to address every issue completely, no matter what channel the issue came to us. In reality, there is a cost/benefit decision.
Google is the primary example of a company that very much limits their support and still has a largely loyal customer base. Here is an article that explores Google's limited support: "Shocker: Great Customer Service is not for everyone" http://thepaceofservice.com/archives/214. I generally agree with the article, but have some reservations. More can be found at http://giebelhaus.biz/?p=163.
In addition, some companies have not done the cost/benefit decisions of monitoring Twitter. A very large company focused on consumer products is most likely to benefit from a strategy to monitor the Twitter stream. A small B2B company will generally have little to no complaints on Twitter.
It doesn't seem to me that most people who complain about a company on Twitter are expecting a response from the company. Some may be posting a very frustrating experience with the company in hopes to generate a groundswell to change the outcome with the company, but largely it looks like people are venting without an expectation the company will respond. That doesn't necessarily mean that it would not be in the company's best interest to respond, but it does mean that it won't further frustrate the customer by not meeting an expectation. Customers definitely expect that once they reach a company, they will not be hung up on and doing so will hugely frustrate that customer and further damage the relationship with that customer.
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