I recently wrote about an experience I had where ATT had a service failure that they used Twitter to help them recover from. As a result of my laments about ATT service on Twitter, my complaint was addressed and I received two separate calls from people at ATT to make sure I was satisfied. One of those folks, Randy Brown, also sent me a letter to apologize and invite me to call him directly if I have any more concerns about ATT service. You can see that letter by clicking on the link below:
I think that is impressive. In fact, I can’t recall ever getting a letter like that when a company as giant as ATT dropped the ball. But that is the way that it should be.
We can think of all kinds of excuses why companies should not send letters of apology to customers after they recover from failure, but excuses are irrelevant. Customers rightfully expect more when they spend hard earned and increasingly scarce dollars, and smart companies will listen to those customers, strive to impress them, and drive their competitors out of business.
You should follow me on twitter here.
Bret, your experience and eventual resolution is an example of the growing power of social media teechnology, where citizens empower themselves to complain, take a public stand, etc. on issues with large corporations. There’s a lag effect between the use of the Internet by people and how corporations manage their public images. Hopefully that lag will narrow further in time. But where there’s a huge opportunity for improvement is the relationships between government and citizens.
Unfortunately, while corporate America and Canada are driven by the profit motive, and react accordingly, governments (small and large) are increasingly detached from citizens. There’s no profit motive to change behavior, and true accountability is virtually non-existent.
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Bret L. Simmons Reply:
February 6th, 2010 at 9:22 am
I love this growing power, Jim, but with it comes responsibility to speak fairly as well as openly. I hope people can see in all my posts about complaints the suggestion for improvement to the company if they ever show up to see it. Thanks! Bret
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You make a very important point, Bret, about responsibility. That’s key to using the power of social media. There are numerous instances of people abusing the availability of social media to defame companies.
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Brett,
While this move by ATT to help you after seeing your social/public critique of their service is ‘good’ — in the sense that they paid attention and the problem got solved — I also think that it is ‘bad’.
I worry about the digital divide between customers who think about using Twitter etc. and those who don’t, so that the first group gets service and the second group continues to get screwed.
We applaud the organizations that respond in just the same was as we coo over dads carrying babies in the BabyBjorn– it’s so sweet! so exemplary! but wait a minute, should all of them be doing that allot of the time, so that it’s not so novel?
I like to see organizations respond to loud squeaky wheels, but I like them to fix the crooked axles that cause the problems in the first place.
That’s one of the reasons why I appreciated that Comcast put up their service improvement dashboard online … so that all customers could see that Comcast is (at least) attempting systemic changes. [something I addressed in '7 Signs of Change at Comcast: What I’ve found so far']
Good thing that you now have reliable phone service, ’cause I know you’ll call them and let them know if you don’t see a system improvement!
cvh
cv
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Bret L. Simmons Reply:
February 7th, 2010 at 9:01 am
I hear what you are saying CV and agree. It is too bad that i can get attention and others can’t, but then again it is good that I can get attention. If my complaint in any way forces them to look at systemic issues, then ever the quiet wheels can benefit. Thanks for the comment! Bret
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I distinguish between the “squeaky wheel” phenomenon of one-on-one complaining for restitution for poor service or product quality with publicly shaming a company on, say, Twitter or Facebook. With the latter, everyone potentially benefits from the actions initiated by one individual.
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Bret L. Simmons Reply:
February 7th, 2010 at 9:00 am
great point, concur. Thanks, Jim! Bret
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