Week 2: "Hello? Hello? Can you hear me?!?" (Businesses with Communication reports)

SONY/Google TV, DELL Computers and LA Fitness

“I’m so lost and confused… help!”

Finding contact information: Sony/Google TV

•  Trouble finding a customer service contact number on the official website.
•  Had to search the entire internet for a customer service number.
• Everything seemed more geared towards getting me to purchase, rather than help me with my product I had previously purchased.
• After 30-40 minutes, I found a contact number- we spent another 30 minutes on the phone attempting tech issues (my GoogleTV wasn’t playing sound on Pandora). After a long call- no luck, still not working!

Social Media’s potential influence: 

• I actually USED TWITTER to contact Sony. I posted the issue I had, tagged their official site, and never received a response.
•  I don’t think that social media could make a huge difference in this specific business issue because I needed hands on or phone-on-ear technical support. I don’t think social media could give me that.
• Only possible option could be YouTube video, but that would require the company to think of every possible scenario ever… that’s hard.

“I hear da phone it go green green green, I pink it up and I say yellow.”

Cultural Differences- Dell Computers & Harbor Freight

•  Outsource customer service. 
• Have extreme difficulty understanding the accent of the representative.   
• When I asked to speak to a manager, I still had the same issue.
• End up angry and likely spent 2X the amount of time due to constant repeating to understand.

Social Media’s potential influence:  

•  Again this comes down to technical support which requires someone live to help. 
•  Possible Social Media option could be technical support videos on YouTube, as previously mentioned.

“I know you’ve called and stopped by 100 times, but I’m still busy!”

Personnel Issues: LA Fitness

•  LA Fitness works on a commission basis. When you are having problems with your membership or interested in cancelling (especially a training membership), the sales person won’t return your calls because their commission will be affected.      
• When you call the customer service number, which is rather hidden on the website, your call transfers to a manager of a club somewhere else- not headquarters. 
• It is nearly impossible to speak to someone who can actually hold the sales people responsible.

Social Media’s potential influence:

• Researching LA Fitness on Yelp, I found many negative reviews. 
• The only potential purpose of having social media for LA Fitness, is that the negative customer reviews may actually get to upper management and get them to consider improvements in customer service.

A FREE meal for being nice! 

One day I wrote a review for Fresh Brother’s restaurant on Yelp. I just mentioned what I enjoy to order there, efficiency and parking availability. At some point later, I received a message on my Yelp account from a Fresh Brother’s representative, thanking me for my review and requesting my address to receive a free meal on them! Three days later, I had a thank you letter & a gift card for a free meal.

Twitter+ Delta= Free Voucher

Let me clarify, this isn’t my story, but I’ll retell it for a friend. One day when traveling on Delta, a friend’s flight was delayed continually due to mechanical issues. Frustrated and being a teenager, my friend made a post on Twitter explaining the issue to his friends and tagged Delta in it. Within an hour, Delta wrote to him apologizing for the issue and offered him a free mileage voucher. I think that shows great customer service, and a great example of the use of Social Media to aid customer service.