Social Media is still a great way for businesses to communicate with their customers. I did blog some time ago about how frustrating it can be if the businesses don't communicate with you and its time to name and shame a few more as they aren't talking back or aren't thinking about what they write.
One of the most frustrating recent web experience was with Primark - the Mrs wanted to have a look at their store in Sunderland when we where there for the match on New Years Day. So, I checked their website to make sure they were open and I was surprised that the website said the store was open from 9am until 5.30pm, with them even having a countdown timer as to how long they'd be open for. Champion we thought, until we got to Sunderland to find the store closed, all the other shops closed and it chucking down with rain. Not a happy teddy and Cafe Nero scored for our discretionary spend. I had a moan about Primark and hashtagged them and didn't get a response. I then tweeted them directly to repeat the problem and still haven't a reply. Am I a happy customer ? Not one bit.
ebay are also on my list as we've had a few problems with people buying items and not paying for them. ebay tell you to open a case against the person who hasn't paid, but, from experience, ebay don't follow this up with one case being untouched some 4 weeks after the person should have paid. The frustrating bit is that you can't leave bad feedback for the purchaser either, so others will sell to them and not get paid either. I tweeted ebay with the account details of the people who didn't pay & I've had no reply from them either.
Back into the transport field and onto the railways. Now I've usually had some great tweet responses from railway companies with East Coast, First Capital Connect & Northern Rail all being a bit good with social media. We've recently got some new buses at work and one of the routes was downgraded from bendy buses to conventional single deckers. I tweeted about how nice the new vehicles where when they first entered service and was then trolled for a couple of days about the drop in capacity. Fair enough, but we'd done the maths on the smaller buses. As I knew who was doing the trolling, I asked a few questions about a similar drop in capacity that his rail employer had done. I got some really positive response on how well they where doing and that some train capacities would double again, so I asked First TransPennine how this would affect trains stopping at Chester-le-Street and I didn't get a response. Very poor pr indeed I thought as it was an easy question to answer & should have been a positive one to boot.
The most recent example happened this week when I witnessed a Virgin Media van almost knock a cyclist over when I was on my way to work. Unfortunately, as it was still dark and I didn't realise that the cyclist was there until had turned the corner & almost run him over. I tweeted them and did get a reply, but without the registration number, they weren't interested. The following morning, I saw one of their vans at the same place and the same time, so noted the time as it could well have been the guilty party from the day before. I tweeted them the reg number but they then wanted a form filling in - not going through filling in a form (that was to report problems with your phone/broadband) as they didn't seem that bothered.
So it seems that businesses aren't learning that social media is a 2 way street and you've got to talk back and in the write way for people to have faith in you. There's some big businesses out there who probably think they're doing a great job in social media, but as a customer, they are failing people big time. I'll keep trying though !
One of the most frustrating recent web experience was with Primark - the Mrs wanted to have a look at their store in Sunderland when we where there for the match on New Years Day. So, I checked their website to make sure they were open and I was surprised that the website said the store was open from 9am until 5.30pm, with them even having a countdown timer as to how long they'd be open for. Champion we thought, until we got to Sunderland to find the store closed, all the other shops closed and it chucking down with rain. Not a happy teddy and Cafe Nero scored for our discretionary spend. I had a moan about Primark and hashtagged them and didn't get a response. I then tweeted them directly to repeat the problem and still haven't a reply. Am I a happy customer ? Not one bit.
ebay are also on my list as we've had a few problems with people buying items and not paying for them. ebay tell you to open a case against the person who hasn't paid, but, from experience, ebay don't follow this up with one case being untouched some 4 weeks after the person should have paid. The frustrating bit is that you can't leave bad feedback for the purchaser either, so others will sell to them and not get paid either. I tweeted ebay with the account details of the people who didn't pay & I've had no reply from them either.
Back into the transport field and onto the railways. Now I've usually had some great tweet responses from railway companies with East Coast, First Capital Connect & Northern Rail all being a bit good with social media. We've recently got some new buses at work and one of the routes was downgraded from bendy buses to conventional single deckers. I tweeted about how nice the new vehicles where when they first entered service and was then trolled for a couple of days about the drop in capacity. Fair enough, but we'd done the maths on the smaller buses. As I knew who was doing the trolling, I asked a few questions about a similar drop in capacity that his rail employer had done. I got some really positive response on how well they where doing and that some train capacities would double again, so I asked First TransPennine how this would affect trains stopping at Chester-le-Street and I didn't get a response. Very poor pr indeed I thought as it was an easy question to answer & should have been a positive one to boot.
The most recent example happened this week when I witnessed a Virgin Media van almost knock a cyclist over when I was on my way to work. Unfortunately, as it was still dark and I didn't realise that the cyclist was there until had turned the corner & almost run him over. I tweeted them and did get a reply, but without the registration number, they weren't interested. The following morning, I saw one of their vans at the same place and the same time, so noted the time as it could well have been the guilty party from the day before. I tweeted them the reg number but they then wanted a form filling in - not going through filling in a form (that was to report problems with your phone/broadband) as they didn't seem that bothered.
So it seems that businesses aren't learning that social media is a 2 way street and you've got to talk back and in the write way for people to have faith in you. There's some big businesses out there who probably think they're doing a great job in social media, but as a customer, they are failing people big time. I'll keep trying though !
Comments
Post a Comment