Monday, August 15, 2011

Consumer Power via Social Media

Since the growth of social media tools available to post or discuss anything has been so prolific over the past few years a number of topics have become common. One of those is the use of social media tools to promote, praise or express dissatisfaction with a company or organization that we have interacted with. It is true that using social media to ‘engage’ with customers or donors was one of the original uses of many of the tools and managers in organizations are encouraged to respond to both negative and positive postings.

Have we as individuals become too quick to angrily react by posting very negative comments about an organization immediately after an interaction that did not go well? Is there a better way to resolve problems with organizations? Is it always the better choice to jump to the ‘viral’ process when attempting to resolve a problem when some other way may be more beneficial? And are we always being fair to the organization and the people who work there?

When we deal with any organization at some point in time we are likely to encounter a glitch. Organizations are made up of humans and we all make mistakes, handle things badly sometimes and take a bad day out on someone who doesn’t deserve it. So why are we so quick to slay the reputation of an entire organization based on one bad interaction? How would you feel if that was a company you worked for and either you or a co-worker had messed up?

At what point do you decide to go to your social networks to complain about a bad customer (or donor) experience? How many attempts to resolve a problem or bad experience with an organization do you make before going public with your issue?

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