THE OLD adage that a satisfied customer or client will tell one person of their experience, whereas a dissatisfied one will tell 10 is no longer true, because irked customers now routinely tell 10,000 people in a few mouse clicks.
Social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter mean that bad commercial experiences can be broadcast to staggeringly large audiences, something that can inflict real and sustained damage to the reputation and profitability of a business.
For an example of this, take a look at this video from Andrew Lock, who runs the popular video marketing advice site Help, My Business Sucks!
Lock’s negative experience at the hand of technology company Archos is broadcast from his popular website, which is bad enough news for Archos.
Worse still, is that Lock has nearly 7,000 twitter followers, over 1,000 Facebook friends, and his videos are also available on YouTube.
But this is just the start, because if just a handful of Lock’s social media contacts share this video with their own network of contacts, then they with theirs, and so on and so on, this damaging video could reach millions of potential Archos customers.
Customer and client service has always been key, but in today’s connected world it is mission critical.
One upside is that positive customer experiences can also be relayed in this way. Bad news, however, always travels that much faster.
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7 Dec 2009
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