Week 3: Part 1 - Communication Between Business and Customer
Amongst everyone, I'm sure we've all encountered bad experiences with businesses at one point or another. Personally, I just went through a bad experience with one of my favorite clothing stores. I was in Anthropologie exchanging a top I bought online, and was expecting a simple exchange. The top I exchanged was to be delivered to my home, and the shipping was stated to be a maximum of 10 days. To put this story in a nutshell, the top never arrived due to an incorrect adjustment, and no shipping address was added tot he completed order. On top of that, it took eight phone calls to customer service on different occasions to solve the problem. As I'm in retail myself, I personally couldn't believe how many mistakes were made on the order. However, I know patience is key!
However, not all experiences with businesses are terrible! I just went through the same situation as I did with Anthropologie with Sephora. I'm a subscriber to their monthly subscription called play box. This is a box that arrives monthly containing six different beauty items that cost $10 per month. This past month my box never arrived, which was the first incident I've had with this company being a member with them for years. I spoke with them through twitter, and later resided onto their personal website. My issue was fixed in minutes, and I was rewarded points!
If I owned my own business I would handle positive and negative comments the way I currently do in my store, customer service. All customer's truly want, aside from a positive experience, is to be heard. My company runs surveys, and customers love to input their feedback. Whenever there is a negative response management has to put in a personal call to speak with the customer, and we have to see what it is that we can do for them to enhance their experience. I would follow this exact protocol throughout social media platforms, however instead of calling I would send a personal email or comment.
However, not all experiences with businesses are terrible! I just went through the same situation as I did with Anthropologie with Sephora. I'm a subscriber to their monthly subscription called play box. This is a box that arrives monthly containing six different beauty items that cost $10 per month. This past month my box never arrived, which was the first incident I've had with this company being a member with them for years. I spoke with them through twitter, and later resided onto their personal website. My issue was fixed in minutes, and I was rewarded points!
If I owned my own business I would handle positive and negative comments the way I currently do in my store, customer service. All customer's truly want, aside from a positive experience, is to be heard. My company runs surveys, and customers love to input their feedback. Whenever there is a negative response management has to put in a personal call to speak with the customer, and we have to see what it is that we can do for them to enhance their experience. I would follow this exact protocol throughout social media platforms, however instead of calling I would send a personal email or comment.
Hello again, Cassandra. This is really well-written post about communication between businesses and customers. I do agree that Anthropologie, as a well-known clothing company, probably would have reached out to you immediately to offer a sympathetic response if you had decided to comment on one of their social media pages under your name. In fact, I believe that most well-known companies that care about maintaining positive reputations for quality products and service would interact with customers on social media. The one case where this general rule is not true is when a company is obscure and makes mediocre products (and the company knows it), so they ignore customers' comments on their social media pages. I once bought some jewelry from an obscure company that I had never heard, and when I try to contact them on Facebook, they ignored me. I generally agree with your view that businesses try to rectify their mistakes after they interact with customers on social media, but this is not always the case with businesses that do not sell high-quality goods that people will continue to buy and prefer over other brands.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds also like you a wonderful business owner. I especially like your idea about sending customers surveys so that they can leave their feedback. It's clever way to make them to feel value, while gaining knowledge of which tactics will successfully or unsuccessfully attract customers.
Hey Kathryn!
DeleteYou know, I haven't thought about it that way, and I agree! It really does depend on the quality of the product. I've realized looking back that it strongly depends on that, and the customer service I've experienced definitely reflects that.
I also work in retail and I know that we always try to get things done super quickly and efficiently so crazy that it took 8 calls!
ReplyDeleteHi Cassandra,
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear about your experience with Anthropology. Sadly, some companies that have such large reach with customers are not taking into consideration the feedback. As a business, especially one like this, we should try to solve the customer's issues as fast as possible. I liked that you quoted the book on your post. Keep up the good work. Oh and nice page!