Last week, I posted comments from Kelly Lux's blog as an example of how insurance agencies should be using social media to build strong relationships with their customers. Today, I have the exact opposite, ironically coming from the same industry as the first example.
Whether or not you think the business in question here was justified in its reaction, there is no doubt in my mind that this is a public relations disaster for the company. Unless you think that appearing vindictive and mean-spirited is a valid marketing strategy, you may want to avoid doing this sort of thing in the future. (For informational purposes only, let me clarify that this is my opinion and not IIABNY's.)
What do you think? Was the business's response appropriate or excessive? How would you or your staff respond to similar criticism posted on Twitter or Facebook? I suspect that this sort of thing is bound to happen to most organizations, my own included. Someone, somewhere will not like something the organization does and will say so on a social media site. What can we learn from the incident described in this post, and how should we handle it when it happens to us?
Price Chopper handled the situation completely wrong.
The person tweeting should realize their business has a relationship with Price Chopper, but with that said the store should never go after someone's job due a tweet that wasn't that out of line. Had the tweet been a vulgar statement then it would be a differnt story. But the customers personal choice of one store vs. another has nothing to do with their employer.
There are thousands of people who prefer Wegman's to Price Chopper (and vice versa) does that mean they should try and get everyone fired who doesn't like their store?
They should've reached out to the customer and waited for a response. Asked the customer "why they liked Wegman's better" and tried to sway the customer over to their side & improve that experience for all customers. They could've even turned it into a positive marketing message "long time Wegman's customer chooses Price Chopper now"
Instead they acted like a scorned 2nd grader and "went to tell mommy that someone's being mean to me."
The obviously have no idea how to use Social Media to their advantage. The person who made the call for the customers job should make a public apology and in turn should take a class in social media 101!
Posted by: Patrick | September 22, 2010 at 07:55 AM