Picture this:
A family decides to go on vacation to the beautiful state of Colorado and they’re planning on staying just outside of Denver. The family also happens to be HUGE baseball fans and, as such, checked months in advance to see if the Rockies would have a home stretch during those few days that they’d be visiting. As an added bonus, their eldest child – a son – who also LOVES baseball, happens to be turning 13 on one of the days the Rockies will be in town.
So, the family buys tickets.
The mom – knowing how much her son loves baseball (and being the totally awesome mom that she is) – decides it would be fun to see if the Rockies would do an announcement via the scoreboard (or voice announcement, etc) since they’ll be at the game on her sons’ birthday. The mom can’t really find anything concrete on the Rockies website related to birthday announcements, so she opts to email them…surely someone from their Public Relations department will get back to her, right?
Wrong.
Weeks passed with no word from the Rockies.
A few days prior to the game, the mom – unwilling to give up quite yet – decides to tweet the Rockies with the same question. Again, no reply (although several other sporting organizations – baseball ones in particular – liked and retweeted the original tweet).
When the family gets to the game, the mom mentions the birthday to the usher – he tells her, “No problem! I’ll send someone from Guest Services up here and we’ll get it all taken care of!” A bit later a more “official” usher came walking up the stairs and the mom thought that, perhaps, this was the Guest Services individual she’d been waiting for…alas, he was not.
As a last ditch effort – while sitting in the stands, waiting for the game to start – the mom posts the following message on Facebook:
“Colorado Rockies…we have a birthday boy up in the Rockpile…Joshua Kester is 13 TODAY! I’m told I have to come down to Guest Services to tell you this, but I have a broken foot and am in the very top row, so I’m hoping FB will do the trick!!! :)” (To answer your questions…yes, I – April – am the mom in question. Yes, we were actually in the top row of the outfield seats and, yes, I did/do have a broken foot – getting up all those stairs in a clunky walking cast was quite the feat! And, yes, I did include a smiley face at the end!)
Once again…NOTHING.
Finally, as my husband was perusing the concourse for something tasty to eat, he decided to walk over to Guest Services (apparently it was right next to a burrito cart) and inquire – in person – about the likelihood of a birthday announcement. They informed him that, sadly, nothing could be done as announcements need to be scheduled at least 72 hours in advance (along with a $50 payment). They did, however, grudgingly offer a Rockies pin with “Joshua” hastily scrawled in Sharpie along the bottom.
Before I go any farther, let me say this – NO, I would NOT have paid the $50 to have had a birthday announcement scrolled across the Rockies Jumbo-tron. However, I wasn’t ever even given the choice to say “NO” because the organization made absolutely no effort whatsoever to respond to any of my inquiries.
That, my friends, is what really gets my goat. I reached out – three times, all tolled – and got NOTHING. I would have been fine with a “NO” – at least that would have been some sort of acknowledgement of my existence. But, instead, they chose to pretend like I didn’t exist.
Now that you’ve heard the story, take a moment to consider these statistics:
News of bad customer service reaches more than twice as many ears as praise for a good service experience. (Source: White House Office of Consumer Affairs)
In 2011, 86% of consumers quit doing business with a company because of a bad customer experience. (Source: Customer Experience Impact Report by Harris Interactive/RightNow, 2010)
Americans tell an average of 9 people about good experiences, and tell 16 (nearly two times more) people about poor experiences. (Source: American Express Survey, 2011)
It takes 12 positive experiences to make up for one unresolved negative experience. (Source: “Understanding Customers” by Ruby Newell-Legner)
So, when you combine my experience with the statistics listed above what, ultimately, winds up happening?
Well, let’s see…I’ve told all of my family and friends and now, of course, I’ve shared my story with all of you. Which means that, if the above statistics are true, then I’ve now told WAY more than twice as many people about my poor experience as I would have if it had been a good experience (although, let’s face it, had they totally rocked the whole thing, I probably would have blogged about that {in a good way}, too. I’ll let you connect the dots to all the rest.
Now, I tell you ALL of the above to let you know just how vitally important it is to communicate with your customers and fans. IGNORING THEM IS NOT THE ANSWER! You may think their question or issue is silly or frivolous or trivial and, while it may be to you, obviously it’s not to them. Your customers, clients, and fans WANT to know that they’ve been heard. And, believe it or not, responding to them – acknowledging their issue and working towards an amiable resolution – IS ONE OF THE BEST WAYS TO STAY IN GOOD STANDING WITH THAT INDIVIDUAL.
And, if that individual happens to be me, it’s a great way to stay in good standing with all the people reading this blog, too. 🙂
That’s why those of us here at Transformation Marketing place such a high value on customer relations – we know how much your customers mean to you and we do everything we can to make sure they know it! Which means that you can go back to doing what you do best – managing your business – and let us take care of all of the rest! If you’re interested in learning more about how we create and monitor each and every one of the social media campaigns that we manage, or how reputation management might be of benefit to you, please don’t hesitate to give us a call!