Module 2: Business & Consumers: Communication and Reviews

Social media has changed the landscape of the internet, and it's no surprise marketing has felt the ripple effects of this monumental change. The personal aspect of social media has brought consumers and brands closer together than ever. However that closeness can be a two edged sword. Social media managers must become content creators and first line customer service representatives. 

As a consumer myself social media has been a helpful tool to connect with a business. I can think of a couple of specific examples about seeking information from a business and getting it from social media. A couple of years ago I had a streaming service subscription and I was unable to watch some movies. The movie could be listed as available to watch but when I tried to I got an error message saying it wasn't available. The error became so pervasive that once I was unable to go back and watch a movie I had just finished watching. I was unsure it if was my computer, my internet connection, or something wrong with the streaming service. I used Twitter to look for the name of the service and the issue I was having and saw that a lot of people were complaining about similar issues. I felt more confident the problem was on the streaming service's end, so I reached out to their customer support to report their issue. If you're interested, they were not able to fix the issue but I was able to convince them that there was a legitimate problem on their end. 

On another side of the coin, I lived in a rural location and had a pair of sunglasses from a small local company that I loved. A screw fell out that held one of the arms of the sunglasses on. I was unable to find an email address or a contact form on their website but they did have a Facebook account. I made a post on their page and asked if they could tell me the size of the screw I needed to buy. I had already bought two generic eyeglass repair kits and none of the screws did the job. What ensued was a back and forth over the course of days over Facebook because they kept suggesting I buy a eyeglass repair kit or go to a place that fixes glasses. I would explain I couldn't do that and then they would delete all my comments. After lots of back and forth I got a long email from the CEO saying that essentially said that they didn't actually know the size of the screw they used and that their business is small and they didn't have time to figure it out. That's when I realized I didn't have to be their customer anymore, and I didn't have to talk about it on social media either. 

If I was running a business and got a negative review, I think the best move is to apologize for the negative experience and offer the customer an email address or phone number to call to contact the company. Trying to figure anything out over the comment section of a page on the internet is often unproductive. Social media offers an easy way to reach out, but also offers an audience of strangers and sometimes people are more driven to escalate a situation when they feel the attention of many around them. 

A clothing brand I buy frequently from has really been struggling with pricing since tariffs have been put in place for items from other countries. The quality of their products has changed and the company tried using a cheaper shipping service. They have a devoted following and an active Reddit page that is not managed by the company but they often offer discounts on Reddit first. A customer had a very negative experience trying to track a package the new shipping company could not locate. The customer was very frustrated and made comments daily in the Reddit group. Additionally she was emailing the clothing company, and unfortunately the customer's email had been forwarded others in the management team who openly complained about the customer among the clothing company team members. Then the customer service agent responded to the customer and accidentally included all of the complaints from the management further down in the email thread. The customer went to the Reddit page and posted about being "heartbroken" about how she was treated especially since she felt so close to the company. Hundreds of people commented that they were done with the company over this, that the company was full of terrible people and that the clothes were terrible now too. The comment section on their Instagram page was full of negative comments for weeks. The company was in the wrong for bashing their customer, there's no question there. What got lost in all the drama around this was that the company asked her to wait two weeks before she claimed her purchase as lost, that was it. Because people had a parasocial relationship with this company so many got very emotional about it.  

I certainly use reviews to get information from a business. I also remember that people have bad days, and that sometimes people are vengeful for reasons that I do not need to be concerned with. I believe the reviews that are the most helpful are generally dispassionate and have specific examples.