Using Facebook to blast a business
It has been said that the Internet affords regular folk the opportunity to speak out on issues and situations, and with the advent of blogs and social media, getting your voice out can be a lot easier than ever before. I guess it was only a matter of before Facebook became a venue for tarnishing the reputation of an organization.
One such instance has occurred which I came across today by happenstance, and it affects one of my clients. I came across a Facebook profile yesterday by the name of Holbert Dealership-Story. My initial thought was, “cool”, my client is taking a proactive stance using Facebook to communicate a non-solicitous message, something we preach over here at AutoConversion. But then this morning I receive an invite to a Facebook group that made me realize this was not so cool after all.
The Facebook group is called Dealership Experience Repository. As I read it it became clear this was a group created by a disgruntled customer, the one whose profile originally reeled me in.
I am not one for complaining, especially digitally or in print. It usually bites you in the ass down the road. So regardless of this dealership being a client, I don’t like the vibe of this group and the agenda behind this person, but I understand his frustration.
Last year I had a major setback with Verizon and wanted to denigrate them to the highest degree. However I refrained and took my beef to the top, and I mean the very top, to get things resolved with them. I just didn’t want to be another winey pest using the Web to retaliate against Verizon.
But now Holberts has a dilemma on their hands. If you look at the 42 friends this disgruntled Facebook user has you may notice a lot of them are other dealerships. I would not hold it past these dealerships that they chose to be Facebook friends with this profile with the hope to further expose this customer’s beef with Holberts. You know the old adage, “look good and make others look bad”. So I imagine this person will get plenty of buy-in from other dealerships.
What I am most curious to see is how this holds up with the Facebook user policy. It is against their policy to create profiles, pages, and groups posing as other business or misrepresenting others, which I think their profile does, but not necessarily the group. This is one of those uncharted areas of the ether web that we lack on in policy.
My guess is that Facebook will frown up on this. The last thing they want is for Facebook to become a haven for complaints and denigration on businesses and individuals. That’s what sites like DealerRater.com are for.
Anyhow, it will be curious to see where this goes, if anywhere. Regardless the circumstance definitely poses new questions in the use of Facebook for business organizations.
When product supercedes reputation
Today I spent over 3 hours on the phone with Verizon trying to clear up a 4-month disaster-of-an-experience with said company. While on the phone, I grew amazed at my continued desire to be a Verizon customer despite the fact that in all my experiences with Verizon there should be no desire left in me to be their customer.
This is a case of a company with a product so desirable that not even a crappy customer experience can thwart off the customer. It’s called FiOS – Fiber Optic Service.
FiOS is to broadband (cable, DSL) what broadband was to dial-up. It is the most powerful residential Internet service available and it is available exclusively at this point through Verizon.
I will spare you the 3 completely ridiculous separate scenarios I have experienced with Verizon as a customer since 2001, but let there be no doubt that with this most recent one, there are few products, if any, that I would continue pursuing after such horrendous experiences with a company. FiOS seems to cut through the grime and be the exception to the rule that businesses must provide value beyond its commodities.
When it comes to selling cars, dealerships do not have this luxury. Car buyers can get a desirable product from most anywhere and so the stakes are higher for car dealers to polish their message and customer experience. I have pulled away from buying cars from my own dealership customers because of piss-poor customer service and I have gone far out of my way to purchase a vehicle from a dealership that could meet my own levels of expectation.
So if you aren’t selling FiOS, don’t count on your product compensating for a poorly executed customer experience.
