As I got deeper into the article, I was relieved to see it wasn't about Government take-over of social media (*shivers*) after all. However, a scarier picture emerged. Although Social Media is high on everybody's radar, brands face an even bigger challenge than trying to engage with their target markets. The taxing drawback to the "Social Revolution" is that it has unveiled an ugly truth: It doesn't matter how great your online strategy is for creating brand loyalty through engagement, if your customers have a different expectation of your brand compared to what they receive through actual experience, you are fighting a losing battle in this digital realm.
Brand Strategist, Jonathan Salem Baskin stated,
" Tools like Twitter aren't some dream of customer empowerment, but rather the nightmare reality of the broken relationships between consumers and brands. Responding to online complaints is a tax that companies pay because of the chronic mismatch between what consumers expect from brands and what they ultimately get. An individualized response might momentarily bridge the gap, but it won't fix it. Never will."
The article also highlights something monumental that I have the unique opportunity of witnessing in the daily trenches of the telecommunications retail war-zone: Marketing, Customer Service and Operations are not mutually exclusive in the eye of the consumer. Yet in the real world, these are separate entities with completely different sets of priorities.
- Marketing says: "Let's get them in the door with snazzy ads and promos!"
- Opps says: "Well we'll only ship X amount of product to the store to create bigger demand!"
- Customer Service (Outsourced to another company of course) says: "Churn 'em and Burn 'em! We have a quota on these calls and your little "problem" is tying up the phone lines!"
And people have the audacity to wonder why customers complain online and tell their 1,500 closest facebook buddies and fellow Yelp-ers that your company sucks because you didnt deliver on your promise.
Every once in a while, when a brand steps up to right the wrongs that have been done, its admirable, i'll admit...but amidst the loud roar of the new social consumers and their very vocal and viral expressions about their user experiences, it remains to be seen how brands will win in the end.
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