The following is a true story.
It was late at night when I arrived at my hotel, a little past midnight. It was a long day and I had a morning meeting with a client scheduled for the next day, so I was looking forward to getting to sleep as soon as I could. Unfortunately, circumstances would not allow me to do so: after asking for my name, the hotel, which is part of an American hotel chain with a very well-respected brand image, told me that they had an overbooked situation and had no room for me.
This was the beginning of a very tiring 15 minutes of life, mainly because the person at the front desk as well as the “manager” that was called over to deal with me made me feel like I was the guilty one. No feeling of apology expressed. No explanation of how to get to the hotel that they prepared for me. No mention of the free Internet and parking that I should have gotten at the hotel which had my reservation. I felt like they were just trying to get rid of me.
Airlines ask for volunteers and offer vouchers when they have overbooked situations. Why do hotels have the right to just send me away with nothing? The more I thought about my situation, the more angry I became.
So what did I do?
I felt lonely. I was perturbed. I was very tired. It was close to 12:30 A.M. But I wanted to tell someone what I was experiencing. So I tweeted.
I can tell you from my own real-life experience that people who tweet about bad customer experiences use Twitter as a last-resort. No one will gain a lot of followers on Twitter if all they do is complain. So it takes something major to push someone over the “social media edge” to share negative experiences. I have only posted negative tweets twice in the 1 1/2 years I have been on Twitter: this experience as well as when my website went down and, even though multiple Twitter followers told me that they also couldn’t see my website, the hosting service said they couldn’t “recreate” the problem.
What happened after I tweeted my complaint about this hotel should give us all some ideas of how to deal with an angry customer on Twitter.
1) People Love to Vent. Social Media is the Equalizer for the Consumer. Get Used to It and Start Monitoring Conversations.
When I checked in to the other hotel that was prepared for me, I told the guy at the reception desk about my tweet. He didn’t know what Twitter was. But he did say, “Everyone needs to vent to someone about these things.” And he’s right. When we have good experiences we like to share them with our friends. When we have really bad experiences we also look to others for consolation. This is human nature. Social media makes it easy for us to share these types of information, especially Twitter because of its ease of use on a cell phone. This is not going to change, so if you are a big brand you’d better be monitoring conversations that are happening in social media. I assume you already have invested in social media monitoring software, but just in case…
2) Global Brands Need to Monitor Social Media 24×7
It was almost 12:30 A.M. when I sent my tweet. The German branch of the hotel actually responded within an hour. This was comforting. Global brands need to have global monitoring and global response teams. This hotel chain did well in this respect.
3) If You’re Monitoring Twitter, You Need to Learn How to Use Twitter
After I tweeted about my experience, a few of my followers commented through their own tweets. It was the tweet from my follower in the UK that the hotel chain decided to respond to, not mine! My UK follower had to tell the hotel chain that it was me, not him, that they should be apologizing to! This was a major faux pas that did not make the hotel look good…needless to say, if you have a budget to monitor Twitter, you need to spend as much in training your staff how to properly read tweets and respond. Any mistake in social media etiquette on Twitter that your company does can be seen globally.
4) Take the Conversation Offline…Quickly!
When the hotel chain finally sent me a direct @Reply, they asked me to send them my email address via a Direct Message. This is an excellent way of taking a conversation offline and away from the huge public chat room that is Twitter. Good move.
5) Let Your Customer Vent
When the hotel chain sent me an email, they apologized and asked me to simply tell them what had happened. They let me vent. I felt better that someone was actually listening. A simple act for anyone in customer support, but a very powerful one to help an angry customer calm down.
6) Respond with an Apology. Quickly.
The next day the General Manager of the particular hotel that kicked me out responded via email with an apology and an offer to make up for the bad experience that I had. I received this email within 24 hours of the incident occurring. There were other staff copied on the email. It felt official and sincere. I was satisfied and moved on.
I am not going to give out the name of the hotel chain because that is irrelevant to this story. It really could have been any hotel chain, so I do not hold this brand at fault. I am pleasantly surprised how quickly and, for the most part, properly they responded, so I hope my experience will help guide your company in how to deal with an angry customer on Twitter.
Does your company handle angry Twitter customers in the same way? Have you ever had a bad experience that you tweeted about and were contacted by the company? Please share!
@nealschaffer
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Taking the conversation offline, while in some cases is necessary, is a huge mistake. The customer has already likely vilified the company online. Instead of only trying to diffuse the situation, companies should be looking to turn it into an opportunity. Why would any company want the solution to a public problem to be private?
That’s a good point Stephen. I think it really depends on the customer and the nature of their issue. You don’t want to incite an angry person to have to explain things in detail in multiple 140-character segments to a public audience. While it’s good to show in public that you are responsive, I don’t think it’s necessary to use Twitter as your main channel to communicate all details back and forth with – unless you strategically think doing so will benefit you, which as you point out just might be the case in certain circumstances.
These days, customers go straight to social media to ask companies a question or to air out their complaints. So it is of the utmost importance that you check your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+, Youtube, LinkedIn, etc.,…probably every second of everyday just so you can be on top of things and nab each complaint right away before it escalades into a public meltdown.
But just to de-stress your work day, and so you don’t have 50 tabs open on your browser for all your social media, Zendesk is an online software that pulls each urgent question from your social media platforms onto one simple dashboard.
The software highlights conversations that are urgent and require attention, and brings them onto your main Zendesk page. Each question is then marked as a ticket as a number so that you as the support rep can scroll through the tickets and tackle one at a time. Or you can even tackle more than one ticket at a time too, if you so desire.
That’s why Zendesk also allows you to collaborate with other department members to solve the issue at hand.
If you want to add in the benefits of email marketing, you can use the Benchmark-Zendesk plugin to segment all your Zendesk into one contact list. Email marketing is a great way to maintain relationships with your customers, and when combined with superior customer service, there will be less complaints and more happy customers.
http://www.benchmarkemail.com/email-marketing/zendesk-integration
Thanks for chiming in Dorothy – I have a pretty strict policy for those that add links to comments, so I appreciate your adding value to the conversation and offering some specific advice.
That is a point blank and excellent question. To say that the brand image has not been tarnished would be a lie. This hotel chain may not be my first choice; however, I am willing to give them a second chance should the opportunity arise.
Hey Katarzyna, thanks for stopping by and commenting. Yes, indeed it happens a lot in the hotel industry, especially in big cities when there are exhibitions or corporate events going on. I wonder if social media will even start affecting the way that these hotels treat the consumer…time will tell.
@Neal
So will you be staying at that “hotel brand” again? Or will you go to the second hotel in the future in your travels? Was the response satisfactory enough that you'll continue to do business with said hotel?
That is a point blank and excellent question. To say that the brand image has not been tarnished would be a lie. This hotel chain may not be my first choice; however, I am willing to give them a second chance should the opportunity arise.
Hey Katarzyna, thanks for stopping by and commenting. Yes, indeed it happens a lot in the hotel industry, especially in big cities when there are exhibitions or corporate events going on. I wonder if social media will even start affecting the way that these hotels treat the consumer…time will tell.
@Neal
So will you be staying at that “hotel brand” again? Or will you go to the second hotel in the future in your travels? Was the response satisfactory enough that you'll continue to do business with said hotel?
Great story. I couldn't stop reading :) Unfortunately it happens pretty often. Popular hotels are so overwhelmed with the number of customers that they don't care so much about few disappointed ones. I had some bad experience in a big resort in Vegas. Twitter hasn't been so common yet, but I did complain in email and they never responded with an appology. They are a “big brand hotel” and have more and more customers everyday day, so their focus is on them, not on me.
Thank you so much for your invaluable contribution Philippe. I believe your points are bang on…I suppose sometimes it takes bad experiences like these for some companies to see the light…
Thanks so much for the comment and adding your own contribution to the story. Hotel are definitely ripe for social media…
@Neal
Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case, customer service is on the decline and few companies understand social media, even fewer understand Twitter and how to use it for customer service. I have had a similar experience with a couple of companies and ended up giving them free advice on how to use Twitter. The companies in question, although well intended made some major mistakes, the main one being to keep the conversation going online without bringing a solution, not leting me respond to them directly and let the issue escalate in public view.
1-Monitor
2-When you see an unhappy customer, follow him or her and allow him or her to DM you, thus taking the conversation off the public feed
3-Ask them for a phone number and call them RIGHT AWAY
4-Apologize and be sincere, apologizing goes a long way
5-Acknowledge your mistake if a mistake was made and work out a solution with the customer
Customer service is or is not part of a company's culture, make it part of your company culture, social networking is a powerful platform and you want friends, not foes using it.
Genuinely engage your customers and prospects, engage your detractors, most of the time they just have the wrong perception, help them correct their perception and they will become evangelists.
Ignore them and you will suffer consequences
Philippe Gadeyne
http://www.facebook.com/SocialMediaTrailblazers
https://twitter.com/SMTrailblazer
http://www.linkedin.com/in/pgadeyne
Neal, great post, it's just unfortunate that had to happen to you. As you know, I work directly with the Travel & Tourism segment, and it's almost depressing the way hoteliers and travel agents still look at Social Media. Not even for conversation and brand monitoring seems to make sense for them – and you're talking about a major player, imagine the small/medium size hotel…
Keep the great work!
@TSSVeloso