I debated whether I should wait until the whole story plays out or write about the topic now. I’ve decided to share now because I think it is something important that brands of all sizes need to realize and embrace.
A brand that I love (and no, I’m not going to name it at this time) recently gave me a horrible experience. My gut instinct was to blog, podcast or twitter about it to the world, but then I paused. This was a brand I have years of good experience with. One that I want to see succeed. So instead, I sent a note to see how we could fix the situation.
Now, it has been over 24 hours and no response yet, but I know how inboxes get, so I’m fine with that. I hope to get a response soon because I really want this to end well.
But the point is that if your brand builds a community around it, then your customers will be much more forgiving. This applies to the largest brand in the world and on down to the corner shop in a town. It has nothing to do with budgets or employees; it has everything to do with engagement with your customers.
I know in this situation the brand might not be able to right the problem. Sometimes you can’t. But at the end of the day, I’d argue that the most any disgruntled customer wants is to be heard and listened to. If you can’t fix the problem, tell me that, appologize for the trouble and let me know that you truly do want my continued business.
I recently had a very positive experience with Comcast, which is a brand that has had more then its share of bad customer experiences. The key was that it heard my complaint, listened to my problem and tried to solve it. Those three steps are crucial to all brands.
I promise, I’ll let you know how it turns out.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 28th, 2008 at 7:06 am and is filed under Customer Service. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.4 Responses to “Brand Loyalty Buys You Time”
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May 28th, 2008 at 7:30 am
The thing I like about SocNet? When somebody comes up with a title like this, it’s backed up with a real world example.
Nice.
There are certainly things about a brand that may make me curb my snark. What I’ve started to realize lately, is that brands have started to pay attention to the conversations, so I may want to hold back on the snark even to begin with. I’m not saying that we should all sit on our hands. But, I think brands are responding to needs without our having to immediately raise the volume to a screaming level.
When the brand doesn’t get it, though, we should not be holding back. Lynette recently lambasted Verizon. Those of us who follow her on Twitter, though, saw this coming. She gave them slack, they failed, she roped ‘em in a bit, no joy, she escalated it, EPIC FAIL. Verizon could have prevented this particular outburst by just doing their job.
Thus, the converse is also true. Brand disloyalty gives you less time… sometimes NO time.
May 28th, 2008 at 7:41 am
When I have a bad experience my first instinct is to contact the company, not blog.
June 9th, 2008 at 7:49 am
I recently had an experience with a start up company that I think was very interesting. The company is a start up Manufacture for Wireless routers and APs (Bountiful WiFi) I had some problems with setting up the router. They stayed with me on the phone until I was able to get everything running smoothly. A day went by and for some reason my wifi was not working… I called back and explained the problem. They were unsure of why the router wasn’t working however they put me on the phone with an Engineer and he recreated this issue in his own shop. He then proceeded to tell me that there was an issue with the software and that he needed to fix it. He told me it would take about a week to get it taken care of…He called two days later and told me he was going to send an email with the fix. Sure, I wasn’t part of the plan to have my wifi down for a couple of days but I had never had customer service the way I did with them. In fact because of the way they treated me and the way I felt after the the issues were fixed i decided to implement a new process for my own start up company. I can guarantee that I will buy again from them even if I did have a few minor issues to begin with. Their customer service has won my brand loyalty.
July 1st, 2008 at 2:28 pm
I found this article particularly interesting because I am in trying to build a brand. My business is a website. It is critical for me to be interactive with my readers.