I just read an email from MediaPost and the Social Media Insider titled “Social Media And The Saga Of The Lug Nuts.”
Here’s a quick synopsis of the story:
Catherine picks up her minivan from the service dept. at a local dealership late on Friday. On the way home she notices a strange noise. Turns out one wheel is missing a couple lug nuts and the other lug nuts are loose. Catherine spends 2 days emailing and calling the dealership complaining to whomever answers her calls, leaving increasingly agitated voice mails, and Twittering about her ordeal. She uses the name of the dealership in her Tweets and disparages the service inadequacies of this dealership. After 2 days she takes the minivan to a local mechanic who tells her to go to Autozone and buy replacement lug nuts and the mechanic tightens them all up and sends her on her way. When she arrives home, there’s a man from the dealership in her driveway ready to make the repairs. They talk about the fact that the dealership isn’t focused on customer service and should equip everyone with email 24/7. The dealership guy says they all have cellphones, but apparently there was a lack of a phone list at the dealership to handle issues like hers.
Catherine tries to explain that SMBs (small and medium sized businesses) are ill-equipped to handle customer service in the age of social media–email, Twitter, etc.
I feel bad for Catherine. It sucks to have a car “out of order.” And, if you’re not so inclined to be able to fix minor issues yourself, you can feel incredibly helpless.
However, in my humble opinion, Catherine is totally wrong. The biggest problem with the dealership isn’t a lack of customer service, the problem is quality control. The missing and loose lug nuts should have been detected and fixed before the minivan ever reached the customer. The dealership needs to correct their service department quality deficiencies first.
Based on her story, Catherine believes that every business must be available 24/7/365 to handle any customer issues. Every employee should have email, a cell phone, and hell, maybe a Twitter account too. She talks about the dealership being completely unaware that a disgruntled customer was bashing them on Twitter to hundreds or thousands of followers, as if the dealership is being run by Geico-esque cavemen who are completely unable to comprehend the concept of customer service. She also starts to pity the people at the dealership who have been left behind by technology and social media. Their world has changed and they don’t know it.
You can almost taste the arrogance.
If your minivan, as Catherine stated, is completely unsafe to drive, then go to an auto parts store and buy a couple lug nuts and install them yourself. Your minivan comes equipped with a tool that can be used to tighten lug nuts. Really, it does. The self-repair could have been completed before 9p that Friday night. Then call the dealership on Monday during their posted service hours and complain and demand some sort of refund then. The dealership does not market itself as a 24/7 emergency response auto repair service.
Is this what our society has become? Instead of spending maybe 1 hour to fix something yourself, you spend hours and hours and hours and hours complaining, Twittering, and being angry? Amazing!
Further, the vast majority of businesses have posted hours Monday through Friday, most Saturday and Sunday as well. Why? Because businesses are run by people who have families, friends, hobbies, vacations, religious affiliations and other obligations outside of work that they enjoy as a part of their attempt at a balanced life.
This concept that a business must be accessible 24/7/365 to handle questions, complaints and other customer service issues and now to monitor Twitter is dangerous and unhealthy.
We’re talking about SMBs here. Isn’t this the whole buy local movement? The beauty of SMBs is that they’re owned and operated by real people. You may know them by name, you may know where they live, your kids may go to school with their kids, you may go to the same church, you may be neighbors.
24/7/365–always working? This can’t be the kind of customer service we all want, right?
Thank-you!! People forget that we are not perfect 24/7. Yes I try to my job the best that I can each and everyday that I work, but try as I might I am not always sucessful at this goal. I am a resturant manager and I find it very frustrating that people are just not very understanding. Things go wrong sometimes, like I said before that we are not perfect 24/7. Your right twitter is dangerous. When you are twittering and bashing a business you could be costing someone their job. Yes if it was really bad then say something while you are there. I know that I would like to fix it for you then. Also think about that day at work that was just awful for you, how would you feel if you later read about it on twitter? Or your boss called you into their office to let you go because of it?