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Going Public With Gripes

Recently I was annoyed with one of my personal online service providers. SmugMug, the photo sharing site I pay $39.95 per year to use, was intermittently failing to accept my uploads. With 2 children starting school and a new soccer season, I have family members & friends chomping at the bit to share in all the excitement by viewing my photos. Obviously any delay in getting these albums posted is a problem, especially when it results in a “where are those photos???” phone call from my mom.

On Sunday night I was annoyed enough to express my frustration on Twitter:

SmugMug Tweet

Soon after that a couple things happened: SmugMug founder & CEO Don MacAskill started following me, and I received a tweet reply from SmugMug offering assistance via their help page/email. This got me thinking back to about a year ago when I tried using SmugMug as my HD video service. I upgraded to a Pro account and found that the upload speeds were too slow for me (note: this might have changed over the past year!). At that time I emailed SmugMug support and they could not have handled things better. They immediately downgraded my account and refunded the difference on my upgrade without any hassle whatsoever.

That’s when I started to feel remorse over my tweet complaint, for a couple reasons:

  • This was a company that had established a track record of reliable support with me. Perhaps I should have sent an e-mail instead of delivering a public spanking-by-tweet.
  • SmugMug is family owned and operated. Don is an entrepreneur just like me. Normally I tend to give small operations the benefit of the doubt when it comes to issues because I’ve been there before and I understand what it’s like to support a customer base with limited resources.

Looking back, the main reason I tweeted was because SmugMug is not free. As a paid service, I hold it to a higher standard even though it’s basically a start-up.

Obviously social media channels give people voices and influencing power they never had in the past. It wasn’t long ago that a terrible interaction with your phone or cable company might result in a bashing session around the office water cooler and perhaps a letter or e-mail complaint which never received a response. These days we can notify a mass of users in seconds via tools like Twitter & Facebook. Due to the viral nature of these broadcasts, one negative situation can quickly snowball.

So now that we have these public channels available to us, the question becomes: when do we use them? What causes consumers to take that next step and go public with their issues and general complaints? Here are some factors I consider before I “go public”:

  1. Free vs. Paid: I generally expect more from a service I pay for
  2. Previous Support Interactions: if I’ve gotten quality support from you in the past, I’ll lean toward keeping things private
  3. Provider’s Background: entrepreneurs/start-ups usually get the benefit of the doubt because I can relate; big corporations like cable companies, phone companies, etc are easier to scream at because they’re nameless/faceless
  4. Do I aspire to do business with your company one day?: no sense burning bridges before they’ve been built!

I find there are no hard and fast rules on this list. Facebook is a free service (at least in terms of monetary payment), yet I wouldn’t hesitate to rant about Facebook in a public forum. On the other hand Charter is a big company that has won me over through its proactive use of Twitter.

I’m curious to know how others feel about public gripes. What’s your main reason for complaining about a product or service on public channels? Do you get a better response from providers when you go this route? Do you consider the size of the company or what you’ve read about them before you complain? Please chime in below!

Posted by: Chad Northrup  |  September 14, 2009  |  categories: Social Media  |  tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Don Martelli September 17, 2009 | 9:59am

Any time I can’t figure something out for myself or by googling it, I will take my gripes public. Two reasons: someone must have had the same problem I’ve had and might be able to help me with it; two, hopefully the brand is listening and will engage with me to solve my problem. Complaining to a group of friends or family members is just as public as posting it to a blog or twittering a gripe. Yes, the audience numbers are’t one to one, but in the end, your gripe is influencing someone else’s opinion about that brand — thus, the reason why brands are engaged with social media as a customer service tool, i.e. comcast.

steen September 17, 2009 | 10:02am

Sometimes, taking your gripes to Twitter, Facebook, your blog or any other social networking site is the only way to get better customer service. The employees scouring the networking sites are actively looking to help people out, whereas often times the CS reps you have to contact can be less than helpful. Plus, you never know if a friend or contact or random passerby might have some useful information!

Another reason for me is to hopefully provide some feedback, both to whomever I’m griping about and anyone else who might be interested. (I’m one of those people who does a lot of research before considering a service or product.) This is probably more my motivation when it comes to free services so they can maybe improve an aspect of their product.

Rob Blatt September 17, 2009 | 10:20am

It’s easier to use Twitter than actual support. I give support through Twitter for a free product from a company and I’m surprised at how much people want from a free product that has support. No one looks on the help site or through the forums, it’s just directly complained about on Twitter.

I try to not give it much thought. If it’s something I’d complain about to my friends, it’s something I’d put on Twitter, because that’s how I treat Twitter.

Tara September 17, 2009 | 10:27am

In my experience, working in marketing for an online community site back in the dark old ages of message boards, dealing with customer issues promptly and effectively in a public forum leads to better customer loyalty. No company is perfect. A good company will welcome feedback in any forum. A great company will use the opportunity to show how much it values its customers.

As a consumer, if I’ve complained in a public forum and my issue has been addressed effectively, then I make sure I pass the praise along with more enthusiasm than I passed along the complaint.

soxgal September 17, 2009 | 10:35am

I view posting a complaint on Twitter/Facebook/blogs as a way of crowdsourcing a solution. I don’t do it to try to demean a particular brand, just to share an experience. I’ve found that some brands are very proactive and have found my content and complaint, even for a very minor issue and reached out to me. I’m more likely to give more business and maintain loyalty with these brands because they made a proactive effort to resolve my issue. I give brands a lot of credit for engaging in social media and monitoring their buzz. If my complaint is something I deem serious enough to warrant resolution I’ll go through regular support channels. It’s when I don’t think something is a big enough deal to require support and the brand does that I’m usually pleasantly surprised.

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