Enhancing a reputation through Twitter responses – doing or just saying?
The recent announcement by Twitter (in a tweet, naturally enough) of its intention to float turned up the volume of its media coverage last week. Set up in 2006, in its relatively short existence it has changed the way many people communicate, and certainly shifted the way many, particularly most journalists, get their news.
Along with other social media it has also changed many consumers’ demands of the companies they deal with, and created expectations which companies can struggle to meet. When consumers are reacting instantly to events and each other in real time, they expect companies and other organisations to be able to respond at the same speed.
Obviously that can be difficult for even the most responsive customer service teams. However, it is clear that many companies are trying to rise to the challenge. A recent piece on BBC’s One Show, while possibly not being the most rigorous scientific experiment, did show a clear difference between the speed of response from a number of companies when comparing tweeted and emailed complaints.
However, it was interesting to note that many of the companies’ tweets in response directed the customer to the more traditional customer service routes – website, email etc. This just underlined some of the limitations of Twitter for dealing with the substance of a complaint and actually resolving it, as opposed to just showing the company is paying attention.
Twitter can tip the balance towards the consumer – its public nature, the ability to add a photo or video to reinforce the issue, the chance to highlight the problem to high profile twitter users and/or journalists, all add to the urgency of a complaint in ways it is difficult to do with a website complaint, for instance.
It’s therefore vital for a brand’s reputation that it is seen to be responding quickly. Most customers tend to accept that things can go wrong, it’s how a brand reacts to an issue which often has the longest impact on reputation.
However, as we all know, reputation is primarily based on what you do, not what you say. So it’s crucial that the operational side of customer service is accurately reflected by the communications element and that companies are delivering on promises indicated via Twitter, and that social media is not simply paying lip service.
If it is, that lack of delivery is highly likely to come back and strike a big blow at a brand’s reputation (#justsaying).