Somewhere along the line during the rise of social networks like Twitter and Facebook, it became conventional wisdom that if you have a customer support problem, complaining about it online might get you faster results than calling a phone number or sending an email.
Companies including Dell, which has a social media bunker, and the cable company Comcast with its “@ComcastCares” Twitter account, became known as early pioneers in good social media customer support.
Today, it’s become almost routine that companies scour social media services, online forums and blogs looking for complaints and addressing them directly. But taking your complaint online and posting about it publicly doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll walk away a happy customer. I spoke to three Austinites who had vastly different experiences taking their complaints public. Here are their stories.
The pricey data plan
In 2011, Christina Trapolino got a phone call from T-Mobile with an offer to change her data plan to lower her bill on an account she shared with her stepfather. The plan backfired, making her monthly bill go up instead and sending her into a familiar maze of customer support calls to try to resolve the problem.
Trapolino, who now works as director of marketing for Austin’s TravelShark, posted about her woes on Google+, where even at that time she had about 20,000 followers. The lengthy post made the rounds on other social media services and got the company’s attention. She got a response from T-Mobile’s social media team and from a company executive who followed up to make sure her needs were met after reading about Trapolino on Facebook.
“I had never had that experience before,” Trapolino said, “I was impressed with it.” More impressive, she said, was that wireless companies have a reputation for being frustrating. “Social (media) pushed one of those companies into behaving that way. If you call on the phone, you’re not going to get the same experience.” She posted a follow-up about the story’s happy ending but points out the the company never asked her to do so.
Trapolino eventually canceled her T-Mobile service when she moved to Austin, but not because of the customer support. “The coverage where I live wasn’t good. But I recommend them all the time.”
The dishwasher washout
Daniel Helfman, who handles marketing and business development for startups in Austin, thought he did his homework. He and his wife bought a KitchenAid dishwasher after reading a positive review from Consumer Reports. When the dishwasher failed to perform as long as the family of four expected, the Helfmans started a Tumblr blog, “Kitchen Aid Shame” detailing their efforts to get a repair done. It was the first time Helfman had used social media to complain about a product.
The Tumblr only lasted two months, from March to April of this year, and failed to go viral or catch the company’s attention.
“Perhaps if I posted on Facebook, made a YouTube video and interlinked all of them, the reach would have been greater, but honestly I wanted to give the KitchenAid customer service a chance to resolve the issue on their own (which they never did),” Helfman said in an email to the American-Statesman. “In the end, our family needed a working dishwasher, so we just paid the $260 to fix it.”
The highly escalated jackets incident
For an example of social media customer service contact that can go horribly wrong for everyone involved, let’s talk about Ian Fenn, a user experience designer and consultant who splits his time between London and Austin, and an online apparel company called ScotteVest.
In 2011, Fenn purchased his first jacket from the company, which makes stylish, outdoorsy clothing. He loved it. He purchased another jacket and had a problem with it. The company sent a replacement jacket, but Fenn says he had similar issues with clips attached to the jacket falling off.
Nevertheless, Fenn purchased more jackets this year, bringing the number of items to six, and became convinced that a manufacturing defect was causing continued problems with the items. He tweeted. He emailed. He posted photos on the website Flickr. He posted a conciliatory open letter to the CEO from his mother, which said, in part, “If you travel to London do let me know as you would be welcome to visit me for a relaxing visit in the country.” He created a “Storify” detailing his social media interactions with the company. Fenn complained that the company’s offer of $30 to get a jacket repaired was not enough money to get tailor work done in London after accounting for exchange rates.
ScotteVest chief executive and founder Scott Jordan soon got involved directly. Via email, he banned Fenn from purchasing any more products or receiving future customer support. Fenn’s fiancee, Annette Priest, who also works in user design, contacted the company separately about one of the jackets from Austin while Fenn was in London. The company said this raised a red flag, leading Jordan to become even more suspicious. This led to a phone conversation between Jordan and Priest, but the call did not result in lifing the ban on Fenn.
Fenn, who says his job relies on advising companies on the best ways to guide customers, says he was aghast. “I went from being a fan to being a disappointed fan,” Fenn said. “I think he views any product issue as a personal attack. I wasn’t rude. I didn’t swear. I was rather surprised and frustrated.”
Fenn says there’s a British tradition of complaint letters. Previously, he complained on Twitter about public transit in London. First Capital Connect, which handles his local train service, subsequently invited him to the company’s passenger board to discuss its service.
For Jordan, Fenn has become a thorn in his side and one of only three or four customer service incidents the company has had that has escalated to such an extreme since it was founded in 2000. In a video Skype call with the American-Statesman, Jordan was sincere but blunt about the situation.
“It is a very rare occurrence for us, what happened with Ian,” Jordan said. “We do not allow customers to bully us. We have a saying here: The customer is always right except when they are clearly wrong and abusive to our people. It’s just rude, quite frankly.”
Lauren Bourgeau, who works in customer support and social media for ScotteVest, said the messages from Fenn became overwhelming and that while much of the communication was cordial, Fenn eventually began reaching out to her company’s customers through social media to try to bolster his case.
“The person wants to get their way no matter what and act like a child,” Jordan said. “We handled it properly, and I stand by it. … We will not sell to him. He is flagged. No ScotteVest for you!”
One thing Fenn and Jordan agree upon is that the interaction became highly personal for Jordan, whose name is directly associated with the brand. “It’s built upon my reputation, my likeness,” Jordan said. “It’s personal!”
The company recently ranked 86th in a “Social Media 300” list of companies who use social media effectively from the publication Internet Retailer.
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