Our family Saturday night is X-factor night, and what an experience it is! Not that I love watching the show anyway (I wouldn’t admit that in public…but go Misha B go!) but rather how my kids love engaging with second screening on multiple devices blending broadcast and social media in real time simultaneously.
We have to sync up twitter feeds on at least 3 phones at the same time. My son tweets on my behalf… don’t tell anyone…commenting on the acts as they come on and giggle at the public’s responses. It really has made me fall in love again with the British public and their great sense of humour.
So this has got me thinking about how as new media professionals we may be pedaling the wrong advise to clients, as there is a danger we are out of touch with the realities of consumers.
So when I hear a comment being made to my client in a meeting last week, advising them that a brand has 12 seconds to respond to customer complaints, I think to myself “what utter bollocks! Who in their right mind can respond in 12 seconds?!” And in fact is this going to inhibit the client from acting at all? Most companies I know don’t have the internal operations to support this sort of rapid response anyway. It’s like rabbit in head lights, when you’re told to do something and you can’t.
I don’t think any customer engaging with a brand even expects that, and if it happened, it would most likely be automated and not personal.
As a customer myself, I appreciate brands responding to me and probably would have an expectation for them to respond within 12-24 hours, if at all. Reference note
Where it’s bad, is when you get nothing back. Apple hasn’t responded about my ipad issue (thanks Freddie) in fact, it turns out they have a closed policy with regards to their social media, in other words, they don’t engage. They leave it to their customers to support each other on social forums etc. Which has it’s pros and cons in itself…to be discussed another time.
In essence, if they’re not careful they will get too arrogant, if not are already and may burn their fingers. Consumers won’t tolerate bad behaviour by brands, it’s been seen time and time again. Quantas is a good example of landing themselves in hot water whilst everyone is on strike.
Pick a subject any subject, hashtag and see what people are saying, we don’t do enough to see what people are saying and follow conversations. It’s not just listening, it’s observing and being interested in what your customers and potential customers have to say.
To marketers, don’t talk shite that doesn’t make sense and have no real proof to validate it!
Davenport Face 