Poor Performance Can Go Viral
We’ve all had situations where we are unhappy with customer service. A waiter messes up your order for the second time. A flight attendant seems annoyed when you ask for a blanket. A bus driver pulls away right when you arrive at the stop (and you know he saw you running). The hotel tacks on a cancellation fee for an unexpected change in plans. The wireless provider refuses to give you a new pc internet card even though the hardware doesn’t work because of pc upgrade.
All of the above happened to me in the past month. Although they are irritations, I must admit I did not make a scene and tell the management about the poor service. Like most people, I just accepted the bad service as, well, normal service.
However, some people do make time to let the company know of poor service. Things like comment cards and 800 phone numbers have been around forever. But those methods always leave you unsure if the message ever made it to the person who could do something about it.
But the internet has changed that. Any incidence of bad service, no matter how miniscule, can show up on Facebook, YouTube or Twitter and once it hits, the company’s reputation is impacted. I’ve seen bloggers write about poor service and their message goes out to tens of thousands instantly. A good example of a complaint going viral is the passenger who claimed United Airlines smashed his guitar while traveling and did nothing about repairing it. He wrote a song and it went viral on UTube. United Airlines took a serious PR hit because of this video.
Companies not only need to know that poor performance can go viral, but what to do in case it does.
John Marklin
