P.439 discusses on how a company's reputation may be built from multitudes of interactions over time.
This rings true from my recent experiences helping a friend's fledgling business. It takes years to build a solid reputation and much less to undermine your efforts. For 3 years, my friend has worked to put customers first. On one occasion, he shipped out an order before leaving on vacation. He sent an email saying he would be out of town for a week and copy/pasted the tracking number. There was a problem with the shipment and the customer never received it... so despite being notified that my friend was on vacation... proceeded to leave messages and send multiple emails.
Just as videos go viral, so do the words of an irate customer. The customer went on two industry-oriented forums and started bad mouthing the lack of communication and disrespect he felt at the hands of my friend, going as far as insinuating that he had been ripped off. Of course, the posts were slanted to make it appear as though my friend was purposely ignoring the customer's calls/emails. Many people jumped on, saying "omg, that's absolutely horrible customer service... I'd never purchase or recommend anyone to purchase from them".
While the matter was cleared up, the customer publicly apologized, but the damage was already done. It takes so much to build up a reputation, and so little to bring it down...
Streaning Star Trek: Insurrection Full Movie
6 years ago
3 comments:
You are online way too late on a Saturday night! So what happened to your friend's business? Did it survive? Online communication does present a double-edged sword for organizations, especially small businesses. As your friend found out, one unhappy customer can do a lot of damage to a company's reputation. The notion of reputations building up over time is true of teaching as well. While positive impressions about instructors often seem to go unnoticed, one or two students who complain loudly can really hurt an instructor. The criticism may be justified, but it should be balanced against all the positive feedback.
Years ago I had to cancel the Internet plan I had had for two years. Although I liked the service I had to cancel it because I was moving to another city. However, this company gave me such a hard time to cancel this service that I ended up moving, and the bills kept being delivered at my former address.
Bottom line: it took months so that the situation was resolved, regardless several emails I sent to them, and so many phone call I had to make. This inconvenient situation made me so mad that I could not recommend their service to anybody else. From that point on, whenever my friends heard the company’s name and I was around, they started teasing me, suggesting that that was my favorite Internet provider.
The difference between your friend’s business and this company I mentioned is that the first one has ethics with its clients; whereas the second one simply does not care. In my view companies which mislead their clients do not believe that the best marketing is their clients’ opinion. And if the clients are not willing to be on their side anymore, they are taking for granted the opportunity to become stronger in the market. In my friends’ minds, this company I mentioned has no credibility anymore. And the cycle goes on.
I am a power seller on Ebay and carry luxury designer brands so I understand how important my reputation is to my customers who are spending hundreds and thousands for the items I sell. It truly just takes one person to ruin it all with one bad feedback and it is incredibly frustrating. On the flip side, it is just as angering to receive poor customer service. I recently encountered an extremely rude manager who refused to allow me to return a pair of shoes I ordered from their store. The shoes were never worn and their return policy clearly stated that it could be returned within 30 days and it was only the 8th day. I was livid! This somewhat high end department store is notorious for their fantastic open ended return policy and yet the ill tempered woman before me was refusing to accept my return because she had not seen the style of shoes I ordered before. Well, naturally I contacted her superiors and informed them of this incident and I have vowed to never to return to that store as long as that woman is still there!
Post a Comment