I came across a story in which I was completely shocked with how a company responded to a negative comment about them on Twitter.
Someone had tweeted about a negative experience they had at a grocery store and they mentioned the grocery store's twitter name in the tweet. Since the grocery store was mentioned in the tweet they were able to view the negative feedback and use this opportunity to respond to the customer and try to build a better relationship with them. Instead they threw all PR common sense out the window. The grocery store's public relations and/or social media team contacted the customer's employer, posted on their Twitter bio, requesting that some sort of disciplinary action be taken because of their negative tweet. The grocery store did reply to the negative tweet directly but did not wait for a response back before bringing the person's employer into the situation. The grocery store told the employer that their employees negativity towards their store could possibly hinder the relationship between the two companies.
I was floored that a public relations professional would take this approach to deal with a negative comment. This kind of behavior does not solve the original problem of a unsatisfied customer, but rather makes the problem bigger. By contacting the customer's employer, they have distanced their company more from the customer and have probably created more negativity toward their stores. If I was a part of this grocery store's public relations team, I would have taken this opportunity to address the customer and find out what the store could do differently to create a more enjoyable experience. Contacting a person's employer because of a negative comment is not only horrible public relations, but just bad business. A business should want to take the negative feedback and correct what they are doing wrong in order to build stronger relationships with their customers and potential customers.
Social media outlets such as Twitter and Facebook are excellent ways for companies to connect with their publics and see what is being said about them. It can be a great tool for improving what businesses are doing, creating new relationships and allowing existing relationships to grow. When used in correctly thought, social media can do to complete opposite. To avoid these kinds of disasters, a social media plan should be implemented by companies choosing to use these tools and a certain level of social media etiquette should be practiced by all who are involved in the process.
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Wow. I completely agree with you on your thoughts about how the Grocery store blew a great social media/PR opportunity. It seems extremely childish to go to the customer’s employer. To me that is like tattling to someone’s mom. If the store just addressed the customer directly, the relationship may have been amended or at least diffused into a non-issue. The idiotic actions from the Grocery store have now become an extended story within itself.
ReplyDeleteThe only reason for retaliation by the Grocery store, in mind, would be if negative comments were being made up to generate negative attention from a competing store. This would still need to be handled better.