Two weeks ago I was a woman on a mission...
I was all riled up with fury about my Turkish fright (vs delight) and I was VERY determined to test the social networking waters and see if I could spead the word and get a reaction from my favourite airline.
So...what happened? To put it frankly, very little.
Even after all my commitment to the cause - life, unfortunately, took over. Between travelling to and fro, working on a number of important projects and continually trying to grow my freelance network, the "experiment" took a back seat.
Instead of being hard on myself, which I started to be, I thought I'd turn this around and take it as a lesson. I took a step back, reflected and realized that this situation, one I didn't anticipate, actually demonstrates a key issue that we have now as consumers.
A few questions came to mind -
1) Even though we have the tools at our fingertips to demand improved customer service, do we have the time to use them properly?
2) If we have a negative experience and we don't feed this back to the company, are we partly to blame for poor customer service being the norm in this day and age?
3) If we don't take the time and energy to use social networking tools to the max, will we truly understand the true value of these tools?
Some food for thought...please share your thoughts!
I believe that, at a minimum, social networking tools allow individuals to share their views/feelings (whether positive or negative) in a quick way to a global audience. That is something we didn't have before - now that we do, we can use it. I think as time goes on and this medium becomes more intertwined with our day to day, we will find it easier to take the time to use these methods to share our thoughts on companies and the service they provide.
Turkish Airlines will hear from me regardless...I've already spead the word slightly via my travel blog (www.travellingstarfish.com), through Facebook and a few other travel-related sites. Hopefully I will never encounter another customer service nightmare like I did on this trip - but if I do, I hope that I can truly use the social networking tools available to me in a better way to really spark a reaction from the corporate world.
Bringing this back to marketing - what does little tale tell us? I think it says:
1) We are in a good position to understand how social networking impacts our business and how positive/negative feedback can and will impact our brand image and reputation - NOW IS THE TIME!
2) The customer is always going to be king (and queen!) so treat him/her like that - COMPETITION IS FIERCE AND ONLY THE STRONGEST WILL SURVIVE..and finally...
3) The voice of the customer is more important than ever - KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER TO UNDERSTAND HOW TO MARKET AND TARGET THEM - invest in the research to reap the rewards
That's about it for me today...I'm off to work on a number of exciting projects and work to understand my customers to deliver optimum results.
Have a great marketing week and keep an eye on my website over the next couple of weeks - I'm implementing a bit of a face lift!
Enjoy,
Miriam
AppleCrisp Marketing Solutions
I was all riled up with fury about my Turkish fright (vs delight) and I was VERY determined to test the social networking waters and see if I could spead the word and get a reaction from my favourite airline.
So...what happened? To put it frankly, very little.
Even after all my commitment to the cause - life, unfortunately, took over. Between travelling to and fro, working on a number of important projects and continually trying to grow my freelance network, the "experiment" took a back seat.
Instead of being hard on myself, which I started to be, I thought I'd turn this around and take it as a lesson. I took a step back, reflected and realized that this situation, one I didn't anticipate, actually demonstrates a key issue that we have now as consumers.
A few questions came to mind -
1) Even though we have the tools at our fingertips to demand improved customer service, do we have the time to use them properly?
2) If we have a negative experience and we don't feed this back to the company, are we partly to blame for poor customer service being the norm in this day and age?
3) If we don't take the time and energy to use social networking tools to the max, will we truly understand the true value of these tools?
Some food for thought...please share your thoughts!
I believe that, at a minimum, social networking tools allow individuals to share their views/feelings (whether positive or negative) in a quick way to a global audience. That is something we didn't have before - now that we do, we can use it. I think as time goes on and this medium becomes more intertwined with our day to day, we will find it easier to take the time to use these methods to share our thoughts on companies and the service they provide.
Turkish Airlines will hear from me regardless...I've already spead the word slightly via my travel blog (www.travellingstarfish.com), through Facebook and a few other travel-related sites. Hopefully I will never encounter another customer service nightmare like I did on this trip - but if I do, I hope that I can truly use the social networking tools available to me in a better way to really spark a reaction from the corporate world.
Bringing this back to marketing - what does little tale tell us? I think it says:
1) We are in a good position to understand how social networking impacts our business and how positive/negative feedback can and will impact our brand image and reputation - NOW IS THE TIME!
2) The customer is always going to be king (and queen!) so treat him/her like that - COMPETITION IS FIERCE AND ONLY THE STRONGEST WILL SURVIVE..and finally...
3) The voice of the customer is more important than ever - KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER TO UNDERSTAND HOW TO MARKET AND TARGET THEM - invest in the research to reap the rewards
That's about it for me today...I'm off to work on a number of exciting projects and work to understand my customers to deliver optimum results.
Have a great marketing week and keep an eye on my website over the next couple of weeks - I'm implementing a bit of a face lift!
Enjoy,
Miriam
AppleCrisp Marketing Solutions
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