Blog 1: Customer Service on Social Media

Nearly all of us have had a negative experience with a product that led us to contact their customer service department. Traditionally, this contact could be through returning the product or calling a customer service department. However, now consumers post about their experience via social media, which can lead to either a positive or negative snowball effect for the company. Consumers post about the good, the bad, and the ugly on social media, so it is essential that a company has a solid social media strategy to respond to these posts.

Whole Foods, with 4.8 million followers, uses Twitter as a means to positively respond to customers as seen below:
 
On the other hand, not all companies handle social media properly. After appearing on Gordon Ramsey's TV show "Kitchen Nightmares", Amy's Baking Company Bakery Boutique & Bistro responded with:
 

Although this Facebook post is quite funny, BuzzFeed called it "The Most Epic Brand Meltdown on Facebook Ever". These Facebook posts went viral and memes were even created about the meltdown:


Let's be real, you know it's bad when you've been turned into a meme. Amy's Baking Company should have turned their experience on "Kitchen Nightmares" into a positive. The show would have opened Amy's to a huge new customer base, which Amy's should have used to their advantage. Instead, Amy's rant turned into a "Facebook Nightmare" and this business publicly suffered as a result.

No matter what a business is selling, it is critical that businesses take social media customer service seriously because it will make a huge difference to their customer satisfaction and retention rates.