On December 12, 2007, Lance Campeau posted a 4-minute video about his Panasonic video camera on YouTube. The video slams Panasonic’s customer service and commitment to quality and has been viewed by more than 3,000 people.

A couple dozen people have chimed in with their own (negative) thoughts about Panasonic’s service. As of September 2008 – nearly a year after the original post, Lance writes (on YouTube) that he’s heard nothing from Panasonic on his camera situation.

A lot of companies are hesitant to get involved with social media communities like YouTube, FaceBook, and Twitter and that is a huge mistake. Huge. 

With the new Web 2.0, customers can freely post complaints, gripes, videos, full-page blogs, and more about brands. And the thing about social media is it tends to stick around forever. Remember, the Panasonic YouTube video was posted in December 2007.

I’d bet the farm that Southwest Airlines wouldn’t let a YouTube video complaint go unanswered for more than a year. Paula Berg of Southwest Airlines says, “We monitor more than 100 travel and airline industry blogs a day. We also are very active on YouTube, Twitter, and FaceBook.”

After blogger Mike Arrington’s broadband was down for 36 hours, he posted a Tweet on Twitter.

“Within 20 minutes of my first Twitter message I got a call from a Comcast executive in Philadelphia who wanted to know how he could help”, writes Arrington in a blog post on TechCrunch.

Doing business in the social media era means brands must check out chat rooms and blogs and jump in whenever the company’s name is mentioned. It means constantly monitoring YouTube, Twitter, FaceBook, and more. 

Failing to get involved with social media can (will) lead to a viral blog, video, or Tweet that will not only linger for years, but will be far more persuasive than any monetary advertising your company ever sponsors.  

Does Your Company Monitor Twitter, FaceBook and Blogs for Customer Complain ts? If not, you need to read this.

Myra Golden

The one to call when you’re tired of losing customers because of rude or poor service.

Myra Golden teaches a customer service transformation system that helps service professionals create warm experiences, surprise and delight customers, and completely restore customer confidence after any service failure. Over 90% of the organizations using the system realize measurable improvements in customer retention rates, customer satisfaction levels, and document drastic reductions in the amount of money it takes to resolve customer problems.  

To bring one of Myra's dynamic, transformational workshops to your company, call Michael at 866-873-8419 today.