Land mines and gold mines in customer service
The way gossip spreads on the internet can turn even your “least important” customer into a public relations land mine. Consider the example of Tom Farmer and Shane Atcheson.
They were denied “guaranteed” hotel rooms at 2 AM. They formatted their complaint to the hotel as a bitter (but humorous) powerpoint presentation and sent copies to a couple of friends online, who then sent it along to a couple of their friends, and on and on it spread. Within weeks the hotel had a public relations fiasco on its hands.
….or gold mine. Consider the example of online shoe merchant Zappos.
They provided special help to a woman who couldn’t handle their return shipping procedures in the immediate aftermath of her mother’s death; the good word spread quickly throughout the blogosphere.
bankbook…not imperil them.
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Filed under: Blogroll, branding, business, carlton, changethis.com, culture, customer experience, customer service, customers, entrepreneurship, four seasons, horst schulze, hospitality, hospitality industry, humanize it, leonardo, leonardo inghilleri, marketing, micah, micah solomon, ritz, ritz-carlton, solomon
