For the past month or so, I have been attempting to get my Samsung television repaired. It is still under the one-year manufacturer’s warranty, so I was expecting a fairly clean repair process. Boy was I mistaken. I’ll spare you the details of my interactions with their customer service department and the fact that a repair person came to my house three times, twice with broken parts. After the third repair visit, I decided that it was time for Samsung to replace my television.
I didn’t want to be a bad consumer and go directly to the Executive Email Carpet Bomb, so I started with the lower level channels. I spent some excruciating time on the phone with the first level technical support people at Samsung, who were completely unhelpful. The (amazingly professional) third-party repair center who had been coming to my house informed me that they essentially had to do what Samsung said and that they couldn’t help me get an exchange.
At this point, I was feeling quite helpless and at the mercy of a corporate behemoth. Then I found these Consumerist posts listing the higher level support numbers. In the comments, I noticed that Samsung has a customer service Twitter account: @SamsungService. “Great!” I thought, “If they have a Twitter account, they are probably checking it often and are actually concerned about their customers.” But, quite unfortunately, I was mistaken.
I tried Tweeting messages to @SamsungService and emailed them at the address listed on their Twitter page. No response. Then, I realized that my Twitter updates were not public - a little user error on my part. So, I unlocked my updates so the world could see them, and continued asking @SamsungService for help. Still no response, not even to the email I sent. Ok, now it was time to call that Executive Customer Relations (ECR) telephone number. Thankfully, they couldn’t have been more helpful. I am now expecting a new TV in 7-14 days. A few days later, @SamsungService noticed my posts, followed me, and replied with a canned response.
All of that isn’t really the crux of this post - it’s just the setup. This is really an amazing learning opportunity for @SamsungService and other corporate Twitterers (yes, I hate using “Twits” to refer to people who use Twitter). Take a moment to compare the @SamsungService and @ComcastCares Twitter pages. There are some stark differences that highlight what @SamsungService is doing wrong, and what @ComcastCares is doing right:
- @ComcastCares: associated with a person who has an actual name, picture, and email address - even his personal family web site
- @SamsungService: associated with nothing - no names, a generic email address, and a cold, corporate page design with blue text and background that makes me want to claw my eyes out
- @ComcastCares: updated quite frequently, with personalized replies to individual problems and questions
- @SamsungService: rarely updated and most of the messages look exactly the same - no personal touch whatsoever
- @ComcastCares: following 26k people, followed by 25k, 33k updates
- @SamsungService: following 11 people (one of which used to be little ol’ me, but they unfollowed me last night), followed by 189, 47 updates
- Yes, this disparity is probably due to @ComcastCares starting first and autofollowing, but Samsung is an international company and should have more activity than it currently has
So what’s the big take-away here? It is simply not enough to say, “Why yes, we do have a corporate customer service Twitter account. We’re so Web 2.0.” Have some follow through. If you have a customer service presence on Twitter (or any social media site, for that matter), expect to be contacted. A lot. Today’s economy is a service economy, so reserve the resources to take care of your customers and take full advantage of social media.
Twitter and Facebook are great outlets to turn customers to brand evangelists. “I had such a great customer experience, they really took care of me. I would buy this brand again and recommend it to my friends,” is exactly what companies want to see on social media sites. “Being ignored by a company who sold me a defective product. I used to recommend this brand to my friends, but not anymore,” is exactly what companies DON’T want to see on social media sites.
Dan Berlin
Sr Research Associate, OTOinsights
http://www.otoinsights.com
