How to avoid turning your company's Twitter stream into a complaints desk

26 September 2010

In an article on AdAge last week, Jonathan Salem Baskin described companies having to jump and respond to customer complaints on social media platforms essentially having to pay a 'Twitter tax'. But more interestingly, he goes on to say that while online reputation management is one [high maintenance] way of handling this, ultimately the main problem lies with operations, not marketing.

When the expectations that a customer has around your product are not met, customers will be disappointed. And customers want a lot for a little - they're increasingly less willing to pay for things and as a result, companies are, in Baskin's words, 'innovating' - i.e. cutting costs. Which means cutting quality. Advertising is also to blame - think of those ads you've seen in the last few hours, promising you happy, smiling faces, delicious-looking food, pleasurable experiences. How many of those are matched by reality?

If your budget airline flight from London to Milan cost you less than twenty pounds, can you really expect plush seats and lots of legroom - or even for it to arrive on time? Probably not. You do after all get what you pay for. If it says 'no frills' on the tin, that's what you should expect.  

The problem seems to be that many companies are over-promising but under-delivering. Perhaps it's time to return to some decent, old-fashioned honesty about what's on offer.When expectations are managed and met, devoting time to responding to individual complaints on social media platforms should become far less necessary.