How often do you really listen to your customers? How much feedback do you solicit to ensure your team is performing well and serving your customer?
Online ratings are like gold in your hands. Those reviews let you know in real-time how your customers think of you. A dissatisfied customer brings a premium opportunity. When you listen and respond to their issue online, your audience witnesses how you handled it. You develop a trust with your community and people buy from people they trust.
I rented a car from Hertz recently. My car got hit and I took it to the dealership where my friends work and where I usually get it serviced. They have a Hertz office right there on the dealership’s premises and it was prearranged by the insurance company. However, so surprisingly bad was my experience with Hertz, I feel compelled to tell the story here to illustrate how important it is to listen to the customer.
The manager and staff of the Hertz office were appallingly rude and downright nasty. I gave them a second chance to rectify my situation but instead they provided more rope to hang themselves with. I decided to make my experience known to the Hertz Corporation. Surely they would listen and be responsive, right? Thanks to my many hours of diligent and passionate Social Media usage, I knew exactly how to execute my plan. I decided to roll it out in phases. Here’s how it went:
- First phase: Post a 1-star review on Yelp, Google Places and Citysearch. No response.
- Second phase (the following day): Tweet them. Boom, I got a response saying they’d “look into it”. I’m encouraged.
- Third phase (after hearing nothing more from them for a week): Post on Hertz’ Facebook Wall. They removed my post within 19 minutes!
- Fourth phase (the next day): Post again on their Facebook Wall referring to the removed-post earlier and ask for a response. They responded saying they didn’t remove the post (OMG!) and then removed my second post.
At that point, I gave up. 10 days later, they finally responded. The gentlemen was nice but I had lost my passion for helping them out by telling them what a horrible experience I had. I didn’t trust that they were interested in listening. Everyone wants to know that the people they do business with listen to them when they have an issue. I’ve seen many times where companies have listened and the Social Capital that’s earned is tremendous.
The very act of listening is evidence that you care. Hertz had many chances to fix my situation. I can edit and/or delete ANY of my reviews or comments and I would have, if they had responded in a reasonable time-frame and addressed my issues. The old saying, “You only get one chance to make a good first impression” can be used everyday with respect you how your team responds to your customers. Each contact with the customer is the chance to make a good impression, develop trust and create great word-of-mouth.
Listening is free. You find out so much when you do it. Do you have a system of listening in place at your store? Social Media has amplified conversations and that’s to your advantage! You find out immediately what the temperature is like in your database. If it’s not to your liking then change it. There’s nothing like immediate feedback to make you better at serving your customer.
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{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
The removing of posts before they are dealt with is such a huge mistake that so many companies make. The companies I consult usually state that their biggest fear of social media is in people saying negative things about them. However, I let them know that it can be a blessing, and a huge opportunity to deal with a situation publicly and gain the respect of the audience.
It also must be understood that there are some people you can never satisfy, or that will take advantage. These are the posts to remove, but I feel most of the people watching are smart enough to see it, process what happened correctly, and we must give our audiences more credit and respect than just sweeping things we might not like under the carpet.
Thank you for sharing, and making social a better place! LOVE IT!
Thanks Harrison! I hear the same exact phrase from car dealers and their staff. Most of them aren’t users so it’s a fear of the unknown that deters them Social Media. We are right in sync about those that cannot be satisfied no matter what. You’re right, audiences know that too! We see “never satisfied” customers often in dealer service drives. Responding quickly and diligently is what potential customers are looking for.
I’ve heard it said that if you work hard to right a bad experience for your customer, you can actually get more word of mouth advertising than having 10 perfectly happy and satisfied customers. People talk to their friends, co-workers, anyone, when a company hears their complaint and the goes above and beyond trying to fix the problem.
Do you have any suggestions for putting in place a “system of listening”?
Thanks Tanya for the comment. I work in the auto retail world so a system of listening for my client would involve integrating Social Media (Online ratings sites included) into the daily operation of the store. Most business owners can tap into their staff and develop systems to listen. It starts with the staff always because they see and hear what customers’ are saying. There are some apps that allow you to be alerted every time someone writes a review for the business. Review Push is one but I have not used it. Nothing can replace good ol’ leadership in this arena…I guess it always comes down to superior management.
It’s hard to imagine that in this day and age a national company would handle things this way. Of course, having franchises probably complicates the issue.
The sad thing is that it doesn’t have to be like this. No one expects perfection, but they would like to be heard and know that a business cares about their experience.
Interesting element of this story is Hertz was listening! If someone takes down consumer posts (for shame!), that means Hertz’ social media was being monitored. Unfortunately, it seems Hertz saw the problem was someone complaining publicly, not crappy treatment. Amazing. From Hertz’ pov, it’s a lot easier to delete a post than to fix a problem and take care of a customer.
Wow… this… is … terrible. But I’m thankful you shared the story, and what you learned from it, because what you’re saying is so valuable. To top it off, it’s all free. I used to not spread negative stuff about other businesses… but eventually, I caved, and share a good story (and lesson) like this every now and then.
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