Here's the kicker: You Are Always On... But Everyone Else Is Only Paying Fragmented Attention.
I don't know Doug or Barry, so all I have to judge them on is the exchange in this article. If you knew one (or both) of them, it might change YOUR perspective on what their conversation means. But to anyone else who reads it, they can draw conclusions from the available sound bites.
So: If anything we say or do online can become a sound bite by which others will draw conclusions about us, what does this mean for our ability to critically evaluate situations (or people) over time? Or is that not done anymore?
Name
· 5 months ago
Well, you quickly taken your side with this bit: "...where Barry comes off as a bit harsh and off his game." Frankly, I didn't see it that way at all. Doug didn't have a question, or a rational complaint. He just wanted to be unhinged toward someone at Best Buy other than some anonymous 800 number, or feedback@bestbuy.com. He wanted a personal, "I'm so sorry. You're so right." He didn't get it. It's funny how online wonks want it all. They want new personal social media interaction from companies, but they want the same glad-handing as before as far as response. BestBuyCMO didn't yell, or curse or do much more than say (paraphrasing) "We're done here dude. Go be crazy on your own time." If you want "I'm sorry sir, we'll do better next time," send that email to the faceless department that issues such responses. If you want a human who tried to engage honestly, Barry Judge is apparently your guy. If Best Buy slaps him for this, it is poor form on their part. Not his. Don't know him or Doug, but at least I respect Barry for owning his shit.
Chris Brogan
· 5 months ago
Actually, I didn't take my side. I like Barry just fine. My point is that Barry definitely didn't seem like the Barry I see tweeting all the time.
Don't be anonymous when you disagree. I'm not anonymous when I post.
Name
· 5 months ago
Chris,
"Don't be anonymous when you disagree. I'm not anonymous when I post." Really? How about don't tell me how to disagree with you in a post on a publicly available blog that allows anonymous posting? God, don't you online superheroes get it by now? It's not your world with some weird new social media rules. It's ours. All of ours, Barry Judge et al included. There are actual humans out there who may not share your point of view. Some of us use our names, others don't. You're like Doug, a professional complainer. Whine, whine whine.
The rest of us out here in the real world simply put our big boy britches on and deal with the day in an adult manner. Try it. It works.
Chris Brogan
· 5 months ago
Wow, you showed me.
Name
· 5 months ago
You showed yourself. Now scoot, and go be relevant.
Sherry Littlefield
· 4 months ago
"The rest of us out here in the real world simply put our big boy britches on and deal with the day in an adult manner. Try it. It works."
You mean like complaining anonymously online? Double-standards: the calling card of the abysmally immature.
J Schmitt @cloudspark
· 5 months ago
Chris - Solid, sound perspective and advice. Too often we forget the important adge to 'praise in public' and keep everything else more private. In my experience, most frustrated/angry/unhappy people really do just want to be heard and then to know that you heard them. (There are exceptions, some folks are just plain unhappy.)
We've seen the posturing and one-up-manship on Twitter and rarely, if ever, comes to good effect. I hope your post gets added to the "how to" dialog on successful social media connection and conversations.
Thanks for adding in sound, practical value to all of our conversations.
jakrose
· 5 months ago
It is important to engage quickly with concerned customers but don't obsess over having an immidiate answer. It's ok to research, discuss offline, and get a clearer answer before trying to provide solutions you don't have right away.
Jed Cohen
· 5 months ago
I think that part of this is related to the permanency of content on the Internet. As everything is cached and saved for posterity, we are not able to escape a single slip of the tongue - this is made even more important when we don't have the physical cues we would have during an interaction in the real world.
This is further complicated when we consider human perception, I believe, as we are far from capable of remembering events as accurately as computers are. For example, Daniel Kahneman suggested a "peak-end rule" stating that we remember the extremes (whether high or low) and ends of experiences. So not only are we fighting against the permanency of social media, but we're also fighting against our perception of it. More to consider, I suppose.
dougmeacham
· 5 months ago
Chris, as always, great advice. Thanks for adding your voice to the conversation.
Greg Pincus
· 5 months ago
A little bit of empathy goes a long way in situations where there's a seeming power imbalance. Even if one can't solve the initial problem, it does, indeed, make you more human if you acknowledge the reaction. We've ALL been there. The funny thing is that this is one of the great tools of parenthood - acknowledging how frustrating things must be for your child. Like when you make them stop eating after 12 Tootsie rolls even though they cannot imagine why! Kids aren't gonna win those arguments, but quite often having their feelings acknowledged is good enough....
Danny Brown
· 5 months ago
Just come from Doug's post now and it looks like both got on the wrong side of each other through an offhand approach :)
While it's true that social media means we're "always on", I'm wondering if this is beginning to set a dangerous precedent? The normal procedure for Doug's "complaint" would have been via customer service, supervisor, escalation if unresolved, manager and so on.
The fact that Doug went straight to the CMO because he's on Twitter makes me wonder if we're opening companies up to be targets unnecessarily. In a way, I can understand Barry's reticence to get involved, when the query should have been diverted via other channels.
Yes, he could have been a bit more genial and offered his apologies and directed Doug in the right direction (or made sure someone from customer service or web sales or whatever got in touch).
I'm all for openness of conversation - I'm just wondering if we're making it too open.
jgoldsborough
· 5 months ago
Interesting perspective, Danny. Think you are right that when people have a complaint, they'll look for a representative of a brand and that starts at the top of the org chart. The question then becomes does the organization have a process to handle the complaints we know people will raise? If not, it's a setup for frustration on both ends, IMO.
When we started reaching out to customers at Sprint, it was just me and a few PR folks engaging, asking if we could help and then sending along customer issues to our Care team. The process was ok, but wasn't very fluid and meant our PR team had to remain as a touchpoint throughout because we were seen as face of customer outreach even though we didn't have customer account access. More chances for frustration on our end and the customer’s end.
Recently we finally got team of Care reps (e.g. @comcastcares) on Twitter under the handle @sprintcare and now everyone in PR knows that's where we send customer service issues. Seems like Barry needed a @BestBuyCares-type outlet. Does Best Buy have one? I looked but couldn't find one.
Is it great for Best Buy that Barry's active on Twitter? Absolutely. To me, that says Best Buy gets it. They must, their CMO is out here ready to engage. And I think we'd all agree Best Buy is often best in class when it comes to social media adoption, practices. But the company needs to have Barry's back in this case and make it easy for him to get Doug in touch with the people who can access his account or take his feedback and help. If Best Buy has that type of outlet on Twitter, does the "too open" question still come up.
Now all that said, I have to agree with Chris and respectfully disagree or divert from Scott Monty's comment on Doug Meacham’s blog. As a rep of a brand, you are always on no matter what, 24/7. You represent your brand and the brands of any other organizations with which you are involved. The key here is that Doug never should have had that tweet string to post because Barry's first tweet should have been: "Sorry to hear about your experience. @BestBuy or @BestBuyCares can help.
Danny Brown
· 5 months ago
Great to hear of your role in getting Sprint into social media and how to deal with customers, Justin (though sounds like the PR team had their hands full!). :)
I agree that Best Buy should have a dedicated @BestBuyCares type of deal - seems the logical thing to do.
However, they do have quite the presence on both Twitter and throughout social media. There's the obvious @BestBuy and then there's also a bunch of Best Buy employees that are officially recognized by Best Buy. They can be found here:
The thing is, Doug mentioned in his post that he's "keenly interested in retailers' use of social media". A quick visit to the Best Buy website would have shown him the various ways to connect with the right person for this query.
I agree that Barry could (should?) have responded with directions to a better avenue for Doug's tweet. But, as many have said, it was the weekend (a Sunday) and Doug's first tweet was confrontational. We're all human, and maybe Barry was miffed at having a customer service query sent direct to him on a Sunday in an argumentative manner? Who knows. Lessons all round and something I touch on in my next post :)
jgoldsborough
· 5 months ago
Lessons all around for sure. And reputation factors in here too -- e.g. you sharing all ways Best Buy does engage, reach out to customers via social media.
Just seems to me like someone at BB should have reached out to Barry at some point and recommended where to direct these types of CS tweets. And maybe they did but he was just having a bad day.
Human nature definitely a factor here and good thing that usually none of us are judged solely on one set of tweets or one interaction, know what I mean? In this case, I'm not sure Barry or Doug would want that.
Seems the key is how they've engaged in the past and going forward, both of which this situation shines a brighter light on.
Dr Wright
· 5 months ago
Thats a good post, anyone can be paparazzi, because everyone had a camera in their cell phone. If I don't feel like being on, then I just dont go out!
Great post Chris. It's funny, sometimes when new technologies come out people seem to lose site of some basic marketing principles. Knowing that anything you say/do as a representative of yourself/your company reflects upon yourself/your company is as basic as it gets. Social Media and the internet amplifies that thousands of times over. Follow Chris's steps above & you'll be OK.
Doug got the website price. I'm not sure what he was complaining about. He seemed to have a bad attitude that wasn't commensurate with the "issue". I mean the clerk addressed his issue. What else do he want? No wonder Barry didn't want to engage Doug. Doug just wanted a rapid-fire bitch session, and Barry just punched out of the conversation. I don't blame him.
Chris Brogan
· 5 months ago
You're not wrong about the sentiment of the flow, but then go deeper. This transaction is out there to be interpreted many different ways. No matter who won, there's a bit of a mess, eh?
Dave Kawalec
· 5 months ago
I definitely understand what you're trying to say and in general, I agree. Just in this specific case, it looks like Doug is trying to pick a fight. I don't think this is really that much of a mess for anyone. It seems much ado about really nothing.
Second_Amend_Tees
· 5 months ago
Great Post. It reminds me of a phrase I learned a good while back as a customer service manager. I was commenting one time that unfortunately some people really do enjoy getting stuck into a complaint. I guess it helps them vent some other deep rooted frustrations along the way - sticking it to the man if you like. My colleague summed up the best way to deal with these situations with the following sage advice:
Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty, but the pig likes it.
rslaughlin
· 5 months ago
I agree with this post. I'm certainly not in the "eye" and have some massive following on twitter, however, there are a few people that read my blog. Although my blog is rather personal people can (and still will) leave negative comments- citing they are in complete disagreement to you [me], even calling you [me] names. It's only natural to get a bit heated and even feel a little hurt. The important thing is to take a step back. There is no telling what prompted that sort of response from them, could be anything. Most people don't just "blow their top." Most people are calm and collect and willing to discuss things rationally. Sometimes you have to figure out if they are in the small minority who just look for nasty things to say. If that is the case, no amount of apologizing or discussion will be helpful. It is sad to say, but there are people out there that just look for people to get riled it. It takes up your time, and energy, detracts you from things that are most important. Hmm, the devil with a plan- who would have thought?!
NatMich
· 5 months ago
Haha, it's definitely getting easier and easier to make rapid responses without actually thinking through what is being written. I agree with J Schmitt- most of the time just making it clear to a person that you are listening to them and taking them seriously is enough to appease them. And since this doesn't always happen even when a person complains to the source directly, I think companies should take advantage of what services like Twitter offer and keep an eye out for/address concerns made by customers and potential customers who are complaining just to their friends or followers. I also like the idea of addressing concerns on a more personal level (ex: email or phone).
williamarruda
· 5 months ago
Thanks, Chris.
Companies are finally getting comfortable with their employees actively respresenting the brand. They are even featuring employees in traditional media - see the new TV ads from GE http://bit.ly/18YmmZ, Boeing bit.ly/6XTIx and Intel (Intel's features Ajay Bhatt) bit.ly/wl8H7.
It seems to be that there needs to be some new talent development programs to help employees understand how to represent the corporate brand in a way that is authentic to them (consistent with their personal branding).
"I’m sorry for your frustration. It sounds like you feel unheard.” Must. Use. This.
JeffCole53
· 5 months ago
Chris,
Great advice. One my first bosses in public relations always cautioned against overreaction. His mantra was "return small arms fire with small arms fire, if at all." It was one of the best lessons I ever learned.
Also, I agree about personal communication. Twitter, Facebook and other social media apps are nice, but only as a way to make the initial connection. It is important to have a real conversation with somebody - which means actually talking to them. I think too many people hide behind social media apps as an excuse not to have real human contact.
I have found that when dealing with angry people, humor often works. If you can get them laughing, you can find common ground and work the problem out.
Scott Gould
· 5 months ago
You're definitely always on. Learnt that a long time ago being a leader in Church life :-)
Charlie Treadwell
· 5 months ago
I'm looking into developing a social media certification for my colleagues, hopefully to avoid this. Great post Chris.
jessicarozitis
· 5 months ago
Great post. I totally agree with 'taking it offline'. More business leaders need to be aware of this.
In this day and age, we tend to react too quickly. Take a breath, wait 24 hours, and then react. You will find that your tone will change, and for the better.
rulesofweightloss
· 5 months ago
Nice blog I like this skin
Pat Graham-Block
· 5 months ago
Looks like law of attraction at work on Doug's part, based on how he opened up the conversation. In other words, he apparently had a memory of Best Buy's practices when it comes to pricing. We get what we expect (or worry about or ponder, etc).
As to reacting versus responding, people can't push your buttons if you don't have buttons. Every day, I work to soothe the unhealthy buttons I have picked up along the way.
hiltop25
· 5 months ago
Chris, you are right on here (no pun intended)! It's hard for us as CEO's and thought leaders to take a step back and not react immediately, but that's what we need to do. I often find myself in a similar situation when something gets me angry or frustrated, I tend to start to blog about it but I don't post anything. Then I walk away and make a decision about whether or not to post it. Once it's up on the Internet, it's there for good.... Thanks for this insightful post!
melissahowe
· 5 months ago
Logical advice that needs to be said. Thanks!
Elizabeth_H
· 5 months ago
Chris, once again you wrote an excellent post. When something riles us, we have two choices, we can either "react" to what has happened or we can "act". Taking a step back helps us get our heads back on straight and gives us a moment to think clearly so we can choose the best way to act as opposed to immediately reacting and perhaps doing something to our detriment or the detriment of our brand.
Kathleen at Seet to a Tea
· 5 months ago
As the CEO of a new company I found this post and the underlying post very interesting, indeed. Customer service is utmost, especially in this economy. I have open discussions with my staff everyday, and try to enlighten them with stories like this to back up our policies. Thanks for a great training idea for our next meeting!
Keller Hawthorne
· 5 months ago
This advice applies to all things business. We want to present our best face to our customers. When things get too heated, or we begin to take things personally, it's wise to stop and let the heat boil over.
I've found comments that I've taken personally at first often lose their sting if I let myself regroup and calm down.
Alexandra Levit
· 5 months ago
Hi Chris,
As you mentioned Stephen Covey, I thought your readers might like to know that he's doing a webinar on some of these issues in August. Here's the link:
Hello, Chris. Interesting what you said about people judging the whole experience. I agree, but I think in many cases, we only begin to see the experience from a broader view when a sense of completion has bee achieved or a conclusion has been reached. When something's ended and over, then it's easier to review it as a whole. But memory's a tricky thing. We'd probably remember more the last encounter with a product / brand than the other times. And even if we do remember more experiences, the feelings associated with the brand from the last encounter might prevail more -- which makes the approach you raised even more important.
Thanks for the insights!
kathybrandon0517
· 4 months ago
Exceptional Article, thank you for compiling and sharing these insights! I really like the part where you talk about checking back after the solution to check in. There are so few deep follow up programs out there, this is a great process to put in place to make clients feel cherished by your organization!
All Comments
I don't know Doug or Barry, so all I have to judge them on is the exchange in this article. If you knew one (or both) of them, it might change YOUR perspective on what their conversation means. But to anyone else who reads it, they can draw conclusions from the available sound bites.
So: If anything we say or do online can become a sound bite by which others will draw conclusions about us, what does this mean for our ability to critically evaluate situations (or people) over time? Or is that not done anymore?
Frankly, I didn't see it that way at all. Doug didn't have a question, or a rational complaint. He just wanted to be unhinged toward someone at Best Buy other than some anonymous 800 number, or feedback@bestbuy.com. He wanted a personal, "I'm so sorry. You're so right." He didn't get it. It's funny how online wonks want it all. They want new personal social media interaction from companies, but they want the same glad-handing as before as far as response.
BestBuyCMO didn't yell, or curse or do much more than say (paraphrasing) "We're done here dude. Go be crazy on your own time."
If you want "I'm sorry sir, we'll do better next time," send that email to the faceless department that issues such responses. If you want a human who tried to engage honestly, Barry Judge is apparently your guy. If Best Buy slaps him for this, it is poor form on their part. Not his. Don't know him or Doug, but at least I respect Barry for owning his shit.
Don't be anonymous when you disagree. I'm not anonymous when I post.
"Don't be anonymous when you disagree. I'm not anonymous when I post."
Really?
How about don't tell me how to disagree with you in a post on a publicly available blog that allows anonymous posting? God, don't you online superheroes get it by now? It's not your world with some weird new social media rules. It's ours. All of ours, Barry Judge et al included. There are actual humans out there who may not share your point of view. Some of us use our names, others don't. You're like Doug, a professional complainer. Whine, whine whine.
The rest of us out here in the real world simply put our big boy britches on and deal with the day in an adult manner. Try it. It works.
You mean like complaining anonymously online? Double-standards: the calling card of the abysmally immature.
Solid, sound perspective and advice. Too often we forget the important adge to 'praise in public' and keep everything else more private. In my experience, most frustrated/angry/unhappy people really do just want to be heard and then to know that you heard them. (There are exceptions, some folks are just plain unhappy.)
We've seen the posturing and one-up-manship on Twitter and rarely, if ever, comes to good effect. I hope your post gets added to the "how to" dialog on successful social media connection and conversations.
Thanks for adding in sound, practical value to all of our conversations.
This is further complicated when we consider human perception, I believe, as we are far from capable of remembering events as accurately as computers are. For example, Daniel Kahneman suggested a "peak-end rule" stating that we remember the extremes (whether high or low) and ends of experiences. So not only are we fighting against the permanency of social media, but we're also fighting against our perception of it. More to consider, I suppose.
While it's true that social media means we're "always on", I'm wondering if this is beginning to set a dangerous precedent? The normal procedure for Doug's "complaint" would have been via customer service, supervisor, escalation if unresolved, manager and so on.
The fact that Doug went straight to the CMO because he's on Twitter makes me wonder if we're opening companies up to be targets unnecessarily. In a way, I can understand Barry's reticence to get involved, when the query should have been diverted via other channels.
Yes, he could have been a bit more genial and offered his apologies and directed Doug in the right direction (or made sure someone from customer service or web sales or whatever got in touch).
I'm all for openness of conversation - I'm just wondering if we're making it too open.
When we started reaching out to customers at Sprint, it was just me and a few PR folks engaging, asking if we could help and then sending along customer issues to our Care team. The process was ok, but wasn't very fluid and meant our PR team had to remain as a touchpoint throughout because we were seen as face of customer outreach even though we didn't have customer account access. More chances for frustration on our end and the customer’s end.
Recently we finally got team of Care reps (e.g. @comcastcares) on Twitter under the handle @sprintcare and now everyone in PR knows that's where we send customer service issues. Seems like Barry needed a @BestBuyCares-type outlet. Does Best Buy have one? I looked but couldn't find one.
Is it great for Best Buy that Barry's active on Twitter? Absolutely. To me, that says Best Buy gets it. They must, their CMO is out here ready to engage. And I think we'd all agree Best Buy is often best in class when it comes to social media adoption, practices. But the company needs to have Barry's back in this case and make it easy for him to get Doug in touch with the people who can access his account or take his feedback and help. If Best Buy has that type of outlet on Twitter, does the "too open" question still come up.
Now all that said, I have to agree with Chris and respectfully disagree or divert from Scott Monty's comment on Doug Meacham’s blog. As a rep of a brand, you are always on no matter what, 24/7. You represent your brand and the brands of any other organizations with which you are involved. The key here is that Doug never should have had that tweet string to post because Barry's first tweet should have been: "Sorry to hear about your experience. @BestBuy or @BestBuyCares can help.
I agree that Best Buy should have a dedicated @BestBuyCares type of deal - seems the logical thing to do.
However, they do have quite the presence on both Twitter and throughout social media. There's the obvious @BestBuy and then there's also a bunch of Best Buy employees that are officially recognized by Best Buy. They can be found here:
http://ourheart.iambestbuy.com/twitter.php
The thing is, Doug mentioned in his post that he's "keenly interested in retailers' use of social media". A quick visit to the Best Buy website would have shown him the various ways to connect with the right person for this query.
I agree that Barry could (should?) have responded with directions to a better avenue for Doug's tweet. But, as many have said, it was the weekend (a Sunday) and Doug's first tweet was confrontational. We're all human, and maybe Barry was miffed at having a customer service query sent direct to him on a Sunday in an argumentative manner? Who knows. Lessons all round and something I touch on in my next post :)
Just seems to me like someone at BB should have reached out to Barry at some point and recommended where to direct these types of CS tweets. And maybe they did but he was just having a bad day.
Human nature definitely a factor here and good thing that usually none of us are judged solely on one set of tweets or one interaction, know what I mean? In this case, I'm not sure Barry or Doug would want that.
Seems the key is how they've engaged in the past and going forward, both of which this situation shines a brighter light on.
Dr. Letitia Wright
The Wright Place TV Show
http://wrightplacetv.com
www.twitter.com/drwright1
Best,
Ryan
http://www.squidoo.com/Catalyst-Marketers
Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty, but the pig likes it.
I also like the idea of addressing concerns on a more personal level (ex: email or phone).
Companies are finally getting comfortable with their employees actively respresenting the brand. They are even featuring employees in traditional media - see the new TV ads from GE http://bit.ly/18YmmZ, Boeing bit.ly/6XTIx and Intel (Intel's features Ajay Bhatt) bit.ly/wl8H7.
It seems to be that there needs to be some new talent development programs to help employees understand how to represent the corporate brand in a way that is authentic to them (consistent with their personal branding).
Best.
William
www.williamarruda.com
Must. Use. This.
Great advice. One my first bosses in public relations always cautioned against overreaction. His mantra was "return small arms fire with small arms fire, if at all." It was one of the best lessons I ever learned.
Also, I agree about personal communication. Twitter, Facebook and other social media apps are nice, but only as a way to make the initial connection. It is important to have a real conversation with somebody - which means actually talking to them. I think too many people hide behind social media apps as an excuse not to have real human contact.
I have found that when dealing with angry people, humor often works. If you can get them laughing, you can find common ground and work the problem out.
In this day and age, we tend to react too quickly. Take a breath, wait 24 hours, and then react. You will find that your tone will change, and for the better.
As to reacting versus responding, people can't push your buttons if you don't have buttons. Every day, I work to soothe the unhealthy buttons I have picked up along the way.
I've found comments that I've taken personally at first often lose their sting if I let myself regroup and calm down.
As you mentioned Stephen Covey, I thought your readers might like to know that he's doing a webinar on some of these issues in August. Here's the link:
http://www.franklincovey.com/blog/landing-job-t...
Let's talk soon!
Best,
Alexandra Levit
Business/Workplace Author and Speaker
http://www.alexandralevit.com
Thanks for the insights!