I don’t want to be negative about this.  I’m trying to change my ways when it comes to posting negative comments and blogs.  It’s not that I’m going to take away “FAIL” but I’m going to try and offer constructive criticism and maybe an idea or two on how they can change.

So the beef today is with DIRECTV and Sprint.  I’ve been a customer of both for a long time.  DIRECTV for the past five years and Sprint since I’ve had a cell phone (back in 1999).  That’s a long time, right?

I’ve defended both to naysayers and I’ve also pushed a lot of customers their way but I’m done.  I have to be and let me tell you why.

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One of the greatest values social media has given consumers in the past 5 years is the increased ease for them to share their experiences about the products and services they use. Unfortunately for some businesses, this has led to a an abundance of complaints and other negative online content created by dissatisfied customers.

A recent experience with an unhappy Sam Pierce Chevrolet customer prompts this lesson. Read below for the 6 steps to responding to a customer complaint online.

I’ve had a multitude of clients ask me “How can I stop these complaints?” and “I don’t want bad information about me online. Should I sue if the web site it’s on won’t take it down?”

No, you cannot stop unhappy customers from complaining. Online, or anywhere else. more

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Several things happened last week that made me take notice. And since I don’t believe in coincidences, I had to pull it altogether in my mind.

First, an amazing client story.

J.D. Gould Company is a family-owned business. It’s been around since 1951. They make solenoid valves. It’s really hard to get excited about solenoid valves unless maybe you are an engineer but, according to the client, a lot of engineers don’t think about them as much as they once did. They are one of those things that don’t seem very important but they are. A bad valve can shut down an entire line. And that’s what happened to the an unnamed American Car company back in 1950’s. more

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Your customers are armed. Depending how you treat them, they’re either a serious threat or a significant asset to your business.

So why do I feel compelled to write this?  One reason: AirTran isn’t listening.  

How You Listen during the Interconnected Age
With 1 billion on the Internet and 3.3 billion with cell phones, your customers can use their voices to reach a global audience with a couple clicks of the buttons.  Here’s what you can do to make sure they’re saying great things about you: more

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Any tool intended to facilitate community formation and/or user-generated content must have an eye toward flexible development goals. Youtube may have been created to host a wide variety of video content but if the mass of users slowly shift toward contributing only content on a specific topic Youtube must be willing to tune their own goals for development and growth to suit the purposes that their users hve decided are important. The usage patterns of the majority must trump even the loftiest goal of the tool creator or the tool will be abandoned in favor of one better suited to what users want.

The agility of direction is key to survival in a world where technologies come and go faster than the lastest MTV-driven fashion fads. So rather than marketing to some target demographic, smart UGC companies, ie ones who want to survive the ebb and flow of a fickle user base, must instead market and cater to the users they already have. They, in turn, will utilize the service and become your best advertising. Yes, rather than advertising to new users, I’m suggesting that these companies must instead learn to market to their existing users. But what does a user-driven company look like? How do you function, plan, and grow when your mission statement is simply to continually become whatever your users seem to think you are? Who’s in charge here? more

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