Responding to customers online is a challenging job as a brand’s response might not always be what the customer wants to hear. However, proper training helps your social media agents respond to customers in a satisfactory and fair manner. It is said that learning happens either by one’s own mistakes, or by paying attention to those of others. Keeping this in mind, we have gathered from across the globe a few examples of how social customer care response should not be done. With this, you know how to train your agents.
- A parenting lesson for a telecom brand
In March of 2016, a concerned Australian mother got in touch with her telecom provider Telstra on social media for resolving a two days old issue of no internet connectivity. This customer needed the internet to work well in order to show her kid a television show. Instead of responding with empathy, Telstra’s respondent chose to give the customer a parenting lesson about how her child should be playing outside rather than watching television. This response was deemed offensive by the online masses and thus, it quickly attracted wide spread criticism for the brand.
- An Apology works, but not a robotic one
In August of 2016, Gold’s Gym Dreamland of Egypt launched a series of adverts to promote fitness among women. However, some of them appeared insensitive and were regarded as fat-shaming. While the brand was quick to respond to irate users with an apology, they kept using the exact same script to reply to each of them. This “copied and pasted” apology was soon discovered and led to further chastising of the brand online.
- When a chocolate store became bitter
In March of 2016, a popular confectionary store in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Chocolate Lab attracted the ire of online masses for making children cry. A customer complained on the Facebook page of this US chocolateir that how her daughter was made to cry because she accidently dropped a few boxes of brownies. Then after, the mother apologized for her child’s mistake and offered to pay for the same. But, the brownies were thrown in the dustbin. All the customer was left with was insult. However, still the store owner had the audacity to insult the customer on Facebook by posting that how rotten children like her should be kept at home. Such an insensitive remark by the brand had users asking for its boycott and criticizing its rudeness towards a customer.
These examples highlight why it is very important to provide sensitivity training to your social media agents and to have proper social media guidelines.
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