If there’s one thing that really gets my goat, it’s bad customer service. In a time when a large number of consumer-facing businesses are struggling, you’d think that creating positive, loyal advocates would be top of a company’s priority list, but as recent events on Twitter this week have shown, it’s not always the case.
LA Fitness is one such organisation that’s had a hard time on the microblogging site this week and while I won’t go into my view on how they responded to a customer issue, its case shows how when not handled in the right way, one complaint can go a long way.
On Tuesday evening, the story was trending across Twitter worldwide, and after a tirade of comments and negativity from incensed tweeters, the company was forced to reverse its original decision.
This week however, social media has also played host to another example of customer service in action, with the story of Lily and the Tiger Bread. Undoubtedly most of you have already seen the story across Twitter and Facebook, but for those of you that haven’t, Lily’s letter and Sainsbury’s response is here and below:
While the letter has been doing the rounds for a while, this week saw it explode across social media, with the piece getting almost 145,000 likes on Facebook at last count. And while there’s some criticism that Chris’ response was a little contrived, responding in this way has undoubtedly been a PR coup for the supermarket.
The difference between Sainsbury’s and LA Fitness’ reaction to customer enquiries largely boils down to adopting a personal approach, and taking the time to make an individual response to each complaint or request for information. In fact, in many of the instances when I’ve experienced bad customer service, the root of the problem has largely been the company’s stock, and often stubborn response, and that’s what really gets me annoyed.
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