The Social Customer Strikes Again

by Francine on August 8, 2010

Take all your social CRM software and tell me how it can solve this problem. A good brand can be trashed by an angry social customer ( cross posted to Yelp).

Today I went to the Americana Diner, in Shrewsbury, New Jersey with my brother. We had two eggs over easy, $3.95 on the menu, and a spinach and feta omelette $7.95. And $.50 for egg whites. I had a diet coke, and the bill was $2.00 more than we expected, so my brother went up to the register and asked the cashier why

[]

He doesn’t care about the money he cares about the discrepancy between advertised prices and what he was billed.
The cashier called over the waitress, who said we both ordered lettuce and tomato instead of potatoes. The manager then appeared, and told us there was an extra charge for lettuce and tomato. [/pullquote]

My brother, a successful retired photographer, real estate investor, and now middle school teacher (giving back), said it wasn’t stated on the menu and the waitress didn’t tell us. The manager flipped the six-page menu all the way through the breakfast part, the lunch part, and the dinner part. At the end of the menu, it said: no substitutions.

No substitutions on that page, when “egg whites avaiable $.50″ was clearly listed with the omelettes? Defending the indefensible?

My brother pointed out that “no substitutions” is not the same as “lettuce and tomato $1.00 extra.” The manager replied, “don’t get rude, I am taking it off.” it never dawned on him to say, “good point, we will tell our waitresses to tell that to people,” or “when we reprint the menu, we will fix that.” instead. He said, with heavy irony, “have a nice day.”

Up until then, I was pretty disengaged, but his tone finally swayed me. “you don’t really give a fig,” I said, using the other word you shouldn’t use in blogs.

And out the door we went. My brother told me later that he gave the waitress a $5.00 tip on the $10.00 check. “It wasn’t really her fault,” he said.




Amplify

Tagged as: Americana Diner, CRM, SCRM, social CRM, Yelp

  • http://www.arkayne.com pkenjora

    Francine,

    This sounds more like a customer service (a form of authentic social interaction) than social CRM, but for the sake of argument I'll run with it…

    What you've done here is blogged about your experience. Why? Because 155 characters on Twitter doesn't quite give the rest of us the full effect. So you blogged and Tweeted a teaser. Had you been able to post this entire review on Twitter, all followers would have seen it in their Twitter feeds immediately, maybe more would have replied, others would have shared their own stories.

    But you blogged instead. If only there was some way this blog post could be distributed to other blogs to spark a conversation? If only you could write this and instantly see if anyone is responding or writing about something similar? If only someone could respond to this and have it magically connected like a conversation. Maybe you could even connect with the blog for the restaurant you went to… then you'd have true Social CRM.

    I know of at least one company here in AZ working on this. Maybe just maybe Social CRM will be owned by an AZ startup…

  • http://www.stealthmode.com hardaway

    Social CRM in this case was used by the customer, not the brand. Now the brand can respond. But how? Not by tweeting me an apology of a discount coupon for next time, but by training the manager, making the menu clearer, etc. The brand has to respond IRL social CRM tools let them monitor the brand to learn what needs to be done.

    Francine Hardaway, PH.d
    @hardaway
    816.WRITTEN

    Http://www.Stealthmode.com

  • http://www.briantroy.com/blog briantroy

    There are two components here:

    1) Addressing customer issues.
    This is the no-brainer. If the owner cares about the market, her/his customers and maintaing the business SCRM can and should be used for detecting and handling loyalty events.
    Some people think this is the big win… I disagree.
    2) Continuous process improvement.
    Companies don't go out of business because of a big PR event… they go out of business because they move farther and farther away from providing the market with what the market wants. One way this happens is by doing lots of small bad things (like a unclear $2 overcharge) over and over again. If you think about it, this is probably why you quit brands… at some point you just say “Why am I putting myself through this?”.

    SCRM (not that I buy SCRM as the name of the segment… but whatever) is really truly suited to helping businesses, big and small, understand the market better. What pisses them off, what makes them ecstatic? What do our competitors do really well… and not so well? What do we do really well… and not so well? In the answers lie the ability to better address the needs of your target market – and win market share.

    Or, you can call the customer a pain in the ass. Wonder why “Joey's place” does so much better when “we are far superior” and quietly drift out of business.

    BTW – if the customer service was the issue, there is NOTHING that can be done now. Customer service can save operational mistakes… but it is hard to use Customer Service to save bad Customer Service revealed by operational mistakes.

  • http://www.stealthmode.com hardaway

    Um… I was with you until the last sentience Brian. I think you are agreeing with me on the use of SCRM for retention rather than lead gen? See, I draw a big distinction between the SFA function and the customer service/retention function. It's the latter where you use the social tools to listen, but most people use the listening just to make Twitter lists and email blast them.

    Francine Hardaway, Ph D
    GV: 816.WRITTEN

  • Diane D'Angelo

    Contrast this with my recent experience at Desert Song Yoga and massage. Two weeks ago, I scheduled an appointment, only to find that office staff had neglected to tell my massage therapist that I was coming. Not good. They apologized profusely. A week later, I get a phone call from the person who made the mistake offering me a free 30-minute massage, He again apologized and thanked me for my patience. As a result, I will remain a loyal customer, and the incident is in the past.

  • http://www.stealthmode.com hardaway

    And that's yoga karma: good customer services evokes the good customer. Why doesn't it work the other way?

    Francine Hardaway, Ph D
    GV: 816.WRITTEN

  • http://www.jmorganmarketing.com jacobmorgan

    Tools don't fix anything they enable. In this case you as a customer provided feedback to the owners of the establishment who should now fix this issue on their menu and should not have charged you the extra $. Tools help you find the issues and act purely as channels but they only get you so far. If you don't have the culture and the process in place then tools get you nowhere.

  • http://www.jmorganmarketing.com jacobmorgan

    Tools don’t fix anything they enable. In this case you as a customer provided feedback to the owners of the establishment who should now fix this issue on their menu and should not have charged you the extra $. Tools help you find the issues and act purely as channels but they only get you so far. If you don’t have the culture and the process in place then tools get you nowhere.

  • Olmanphoto

    When a waiter or manager asks how did I like the meal, I always try to be honest. In my view of the world I expect that an honest answer, if good can give a pat on the back and boost confidence. A negative comment delivered with sincerity and received with an attitude of “thanks we will work on that”, would make me want to give a second chance.

  • Olmanphoto

    When a waiter or manager asks how did I like the meal, I always try to be honest. In my view of the world I expect that an honest answer, if good can give a pat on the back and boost confidence. A negative comment delivered with sincerity and received with an attitude of “thanks we will work on that”, would make me want to give a second chance.

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