Do you see webcare as a necessary evil or as an opportunity to build a relationship with your customer? Think about this carefully. Webcare is becoming increasingly important. This is no longer news and certainly not a trend. However, there are developments in the field of webcare that underline that we need to seriously consider the above question.
The role of customer service on social media is significant. Customer service is 'the eyes and ears of the company' and is one of the most important marketing expressions. If your company has its service in order, your customers will also express this on social media. This is well known. There are currently a number of developments in the field of webcare and we would like to present them to you. Below are four trends that will ensure that we have to think carefully about this question:
1. Consumers promote complaints paid via social media
The first trend is growing among consumers. Using advertisements on Twitter, Facebook or YouTube to draw attention to their complaint. If the advertisement is not specifically aimed at the company, then everyone can know about it. Consumers are becoming more creative in finding a solution to their complaint.
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In many cases, such a paid complaint is preceded by a long story. In 90% of cases, the company fails to adequately resolve the complaint. The consumer often sees the use of advertisements to draw attention to the complaint as a last resort.
This development, the use of Promoted Tweets or Sponsored Facebook stories, started last year but is starting to grow. This is something that is still mainly happening in America, but will soon blow over to the Netherlands. Consumers are looking for new ways to be heard by companies and this is a solution. If you don't want to hear, you'll have to feel, right?
British Airways bites the dust
promotedtweetLate last year, Hasan Syed from America had had enough. His family and he were not being helped well by the airline British Airways . It was time for British Airways to be shocked. Hasan decided to promote his tweet for 1000 dollars. Of course, there are a lot of complaints on Twitter and by now we are starting to consider it the most normal thing in the world, according to Hasan Syed. He decided to do it differently by promoting his tweet. Not only his own 400 followers saw the tweet, but also 50,000 people in New York and the United Kingdom, where he had targeted the advertisement.
A Bank of America customer was also fed up. He had filed a complaint bahamas mobile phone number list several times and was not helped properly by email and telephone. He decided to do things differently. He had made a Facebook post addressed to Bank of America, and then promoted it for 7 dollars. As a result, his message went viral in America. It was picked up by many consumers and (marketing) sites. The bank, like British Airways, got a lot of flak for it.
There are many more examples where the consumer is fed up and takes matters into his own hands. Paying for advertisements to draw attention to complaints is starting to become a phenomenon.
2. Consumers are becoming more creative
Social media, we have started using it en masse and we are also getting better at it. Some people have even become so adept with these media that the content they create is shared a lot, or even goes 'viral'. This also happens more and more often with complaints. Dissatisfied consumers, for example, record a video with their displeasure. This is so catchy that it goes viral. They know how to reach so many people without too much effort, in an organic way, that no consumer or company misses the complaint.
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United Airlines & Baggage
Dave Caroll had also thought of this. He was flying with United Airlines and thought that the airline was bad at handling passengers' belongings. This got so bad that he wrote a song about it. After a flight with United Airlines, it turned out that his guitar was broken upon arrival. This was because the employees had thrown his suitcase. He posted the song on YouTube and within 10 days, Carol's song was a viral hit. The video had more than 3 million views and 14,000 comments in ten days.