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Customer service or customer servicide?

May 10th, 2010 by Simon Kirby · 2 Comments so far

Customer service failure?

Can any company with bad customer service survive in a world of ubiquitous social media?

Here’s a small round-up of the many ways in which my local train company, First Capital Connect, is committing customer servicide.

  • Twitter feed of real-time feed of passenger angst.
  • Search YouTube for First Capital Connect and results are full of documentary evidence of lousy customer service.  The most witty reflection is below:

  • Online government petition to end First Capital Connect’s franchise here.
  • First Capital Connect official Facebook page (364 members).
  • I hate First Capital Connect Facebook page (2,548 members).
  • FirstCrapitalConnect parody site (Page 1 on Google for ‘First Capital Connect’).

Can’t help but think that as a shareholder, I’d be worried.  I can’t help but think that this weight of authentic, peer condemnation neutralises any investment that FCC could make in its brand.  Putting it another way, your customer service is your brand.



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There have been 2 comments so far

  • 1 Tweets that mention Customer service or customer servicide? | Opine Consulting -- Topsy.com // May 11, 2010 at 12:23

    [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by kimberly nasief and Julie Raque, Simon Kirby. Simon Kirby said: Opine Consulting |: Customer service or customer servicide? http://bit.ly/9rOams [...]

  • 2 Jason Wolfe // May 19, 2010 at 12:14

    Difficult one to quantify, but social media does not currently equate to mass media (despite what those of us who use it might like to think). The election showed nicely that high levels of Twitter activity do not necessarily permeate to the mass consumers of the UK.

    To answer the question, I think it’s perfectly possible for a business to survive (and even thrive) in a world of ubiquitous social media. However, the costs of doing so can be high, and if you’re target customer segment has a high propensity to use social media, you can take quite a hit (just look at Dell).

    But, and this is an important point, your social-media-driven brand value can go up as well as down. People’s attitudes to a brand fluctuate far quicker than they ever used to. Do something good (or at least worthy of mention) and it can have powerful effects as well.

    Ironically a lot of it comes down to expectations. Modern society expects very little from large corporations. When they exceed those expectations, it can work in their favour.

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