By Heather Havenstein

From article in Computerworld.com

Full article at: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9090398

May 28, 2008 (Computerworld) Comcast Corp. scored a public relations coup in April when an executive responded within 20 minutes to complaints about a cable outage posted by a prominent blogger on a microblogging site.

Michael Arrington said that a top official from the Philadelphia-based cable company responded to his post and made sure that a technician was dispatched to fix the 36-hour outage.

Comcast is one of several large companies that have recently started using Web 2.0 tools to monitor blogs and social networks to discover user concerns. The companies are also using such tools to communicate with and learn from customers, according to analysts and executives.

Arrington said that he first notified Comcast of the outage by a more traditional means — the telephone help desk — but technicians there had no idea when the widespread outage could be corrected.

Granted, Arrington’s stature in the blogosphere may have hastened the response to his complaint, but it did come in the midst of a months-long program, called Comcast Cares, started by the company to monitor Twitter and respond to customer concerns posted there.

In October, 2007, prior to Comcast’s launch of the Web 2.0 effort, magazine columnist and radio personality Bob Garfield created a blog called “Comcast Must Die.”. Garfield’s goal was to help Comcast customers publicly air complaints about the cable company. At about the same time, a 76-year-old woman made national news by taking a hammer to a keyboard in a Comcast office after becoming frustrated with Comcast’s customer-service response.

A cursory check of Comcast Cares on May 22 found multiple examples of employees responding — often in less than 15 minutes — to complaints that customers posted on Twitter, where users can create 140-character “miniblogs.” Comcast employees mostly apologized for the problems and requested the information needed to solve them.

A Comcast spokeswoman said the company created the program to proactively address customer concerns. She said the company can now engage its customers wherever they are most comfortable.

Most early corporate Web 2.0 efforts included internal blogs, social networks and online communities that focused on improving communication among workers. The growing popularity of such tools among consumers has led to the launch of products that fit into what some companies are calling “Customer Service 2.0,” which monitors what customers say in online forums.

In late April, New York Life Insurance Co. began a move to Customer Service 2.0 by providing a platform for customer feedback on articles and other content in its Web site. The company also added links to various social networking sites so users can bookmark and share information across the Web.

Ken Hittel, vice president of corporate Internet development at the insurance company, said the initial version of the site is designed to first give customers a way to “talk” to New York Life. The feedback program is a first step in a plan to make better use the company’s Web site to gain insight into customer needs, he added.

The next step will be to allow employees to actively respond to the customer comments on the site.

The New York-based insurer, like many other companies, took the first step toward Customer Service 2.0 with some trepidation, Hittel said.

He noted that some executives worried about what customers would say about the company once the “barn doors” were opened. “In fact, if there is some particularly bad thing that people want to say about us, it’s better that we find out about it,” Hittel maintained.

“People are talking about us on the Internet just like they are talking about everyone else. This gives people a chance to talk about us directly to us as opposed to behind our back,” he added.

Therein lies the key reason why IDC analyst Rachel Happe criticized companies that are reluctant to embrace the new form of customer service because they fear negative feedback. She called such concerns a “red herring.”

Customers have always been in control of the brands they use, she noted. Now, however, they can arm themselves with virtual megaphones and shout their concerns throughout the blogosphere. It’s only common sense to at least listen to what these users say, Happe said.

In many cases, just acknowledging a problem can help ease criticism on the Web, she noted.

For example, Dell Inc.’s public admission that some critics of its support programs were correct has led to a slow shifting of the company’s image. Since its admission, the tone of some initially critical bloggers has become neutral or even positive, she said.

Meanwhile, SAP AG’s online social community for developers and business process managers now includes more than 1 million users, she added. Many small and midsize companies are using SAP-sponsored online communities to gain access to a network of peers to discuss questions and concerns about SAP products.

The SAP program is improving the lot of users, who can get quick answers from fellow customers. It’s also cutting SAP’s support costs as fewer questions make it to help desk personnel.

“Customers are actually starting to feel like they can ask questions, which is good because they are engaging and they are getting more satisfaction — at a lower cost to the company,” she added.

In addition, company executives can use the customer input as they make strategic business decisions.

For example, The Artful Home, which sells art and other home decorating items, significantly changed the content on its Web site based on user suggestions.

The Artful Home site is run by The Guild Inc., a Madison, Wisc.-based art dealer that links artists with potential buyers of their goods.

By monitoring the number of customers participating in specific discussion topics and analyzing the content they posted, the company found that they are mostly interested in how to use the products they buy in design and decorating projects.

“That was a pretty resounding answer to a very big question for us,” said Toni Sikes, the founder and artistic adviser at The Guild.

The user needs surprised the company because some executives thought that bolstering information about individual artists and their artistic motivation would most benefit customers, Sikes said. Others had maintained that it was most important to tell customers how products were made.

Read full article at: http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9090398

Read te entire article at http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/digital/e3if57cb0c541e56ebf990efc9c9949c2af

April 24, 2008

-By Eric Newman, Brandweek

NEW YORK Forget focus groups. Consumers are giving it straight to brands, and each other, via online social media in big numbers, according to a recent study by the Society for New Communications Research, Palo Alto, Calif.

“Exploring the Link Between Customer Care and Brand Reputation in the Age of Social Media” surveyed more than 300 active Internet users during February and March.

The study found that 74 percent of respondents choose companies or brands based on customer service experiences shared by other Web users on the Internet. Eighty-one percent of those polled said they believe blogs, online rating systems and discussion forums give consumers “a greater voice” in customer service. However, only 33 percent of respondents felt that companies take customers’ opinions seriously.

“This study indicates that there is a growing group of highly desirable consumers using social media to research companies,” said Ganim Nora Barnes, a senior fellow at SNCR, in a statement. This demo includes adults 25-55 with a college education, making over $100,000 a year. “These most savvy and sought-after consumers will not support companies with poor customer care reputations, and they will talk about all of this openly with others via multiple online vehicles. This research should serve as a wake-up call to companies: listen, respond, and improve.”

The study also found what marketers might find somewhat counterintuitive. While search engines were deemed the most valuable online tools for researching customer experience with a given brand, 39 percent of respondents rated blogging services like Twitter and Pownce as being of “no value” to such research. Similarly, 27 percent found YouTube useless, and 22 percent said the same of social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace.

Of those industries judged to be doing the best job in using social media to respond to customer service issues, technology, retail and travel companies took top honors. Dell and Amazon were noted most often as those companies doing the best job handling customer care problems via social media.

Utilities, healthcare and insurance firms fared the worst.

Monday, November 5, 2007 - 2:40 PM MST

The Business Journal of Phoenix - by Mike Sunnucks Phoenix Business Journal

US Airways Group Inc. had the highest percentage of consumer complaints of major U.S. airlines for the month of September as well as for the first nine months of the year.

The U.S. Department of Transportation reported Monday that US Airways (NYSE:LCC) had 2.13 complaints for every 100,000 passengers. That ranked the Tempe-based airline 20th among the top 20 major U.S. carriers. Delta Air Lines was next in line with 2.11 complaints per 100,000 passengers. Aloha Airlines scored the best with no complaints during September.

US Airways also had the highest percentage of consumer gripes for January through September with 3.43 complaints per 100,000 passengers, followed by United Airlines. Aloha had the best score followed by Southwest Airlines, according to the USDOT.

Austin Business Journal

With higher monthly payments in store for subprime mortgage owners, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has asked three mortgage companies to take steps to prevent Texans from losing their homes to foreclosure.

In a meeting with Houston-based Litton Loan; Calabasas, Calif.-based Countrywide Mortgage; and Dallas-based EMC Mortgage, Abbott proposed five measures designed to preserve homeownership in Texas, improve consumer communication and resolve complaints.

They included that the lenders should:

• Provide long-term solutions for borrowers with adjustable-rate mortgage loans.
• Mitigate first, collect second.
• Create an in-house resolution committee to address consumer complaints.
• Improve communication with consumers.
• Waive applicable penalties and fees.

“Mortgage lenders, loan servicers and public officials must work cooperatively on behalf of Texas homeowners who are affected by the looming housing crisis,” Abbott says. “Because of the housing industry’s tremendous economic impact, resolving this issue is important to the Texas economy’s continued growth and expansion.”

Business Week

SAN FRANCISCO

California Attorney General Jerry Brown has won a settlement from AT&T Mobility to stop charging customers who say they lost their mobile telephones.

The lawsuit filed by Brown in San Francisco Superior Court on Wednesday accused the telephone company of illegally charging customers for services they didn’t authorize.

AT&T has agreed to stop the practice and to credit customers’ accounts after claims of theft or loss, or immediately investigate those claims. The phone company also has agreed to reimburse customers who can show their mobile phones were used without their permission since 2003.

Brown’s office also will be paid $500,000 by AT&T for investigative costs.

“We have agreed to these extra steps for the protection of our customers,” said company spokesman Ted Carr. “While AT&T has admitted no wrong doing in this matter, we believe today’s agreement is the right thing to do.”

The attorney general said the probe was launched after his office began receiving customer complaints in 2006.

The New York Times - Hillary Chura

As the power of the Internet grows, businesses small and large find themselves confounded by disenchanted employees, suppliers and competitors who seek fertile ground to air grievances online.

Armed with little more than a Web connection and a keyboard, these detractors can do everything from irritate, via a scathing review, to causing serious business problems by using message boards to reveal company secrets or spread rumors of unethical behavior. They may also start a gripe site or register a Web address in their target’s name.

“There is all type of damage by miscreants on the Web to a business,” said Marc S. Friedman, chairman of the intellectual property practice at Sills Cummis Epstein & Gross in Manhattan. “The number of methods depends only on the creativity of the wrongdoer.”

For Katie Lambert, it was anonymous postings on AOL’s Yellow Pages about the gym she owns, Go Figure, in Westwood, Mass. The gym, the postings said, was overpriced, crowded and chaotic. Ms. Lambert didn’t learn of the comments until a member alerted her. When some loyal customers found out about the review, they went online and responded positively, but the detractor always shot back. Ms. Lambert said she tried to contact AOL but could never reach anyone who could remove the material.

“Anybody can write anything in the world, whether it’s true or not. It could be affecting my business right now,” Ms. Lambert said. She said she ultimately realized the postings came from a member who didn’t want to pay a $100 cancellation fee to get out of her contract. Ms. Lambert’s lawyer wrote the woman, asking that the false comments stop. They did, and Ms. Lambert said she learned that companies should periodically check what is being said about them online.

Business is not alone in such frustrations. Politicians like Hillary Rodham Clinton, authors like Patricia Cornwell as well as other public and private individuals find themselves in the cross hairs of commentators emboldened by the anonymity of cyberspace. But such postings can do more than just irritate; financial damages can reach millions of dollars or shut down a business entirely.

Remedies vary by case and by state, but lawyers, Internet specialists and others counsel that the best course with may be to ignore irritating posts because trying to squelch a malcontent can have unintended consequences.

“Your reaction often, if you’re a small business, is to get angry and to fire off a letter,” said Barry Werbin, an intellectual property lawyer at Herrick, Feinstein in New York. “Some big companies do it. More often than not, the person who posts the gripe site can’t wait to get that letter and post it.”

Sometimes, Mr. Werbin added, “it can worsen the damage because it just fuels the fire.”

Assuming that the posting activity is not illegal or defamatory and truly damages a business rather than just an ego, there may be better ways to respond. Scurrilous opinions often appear on Web sites including Yahoo message boards, AOL and MySpace. Those sites may remove objectionable material if asked but are not legally required to do so. Even if they do remove it, the damage may already have been done. Besides, even if the comments are taken down, a determined whiner can find any number of other venues. Other online review sites, like Yelp or TripAdvisor, are particularly influential.

“New consumer opinion gets posted about every five seconds,” said Rob Crumpler, chief executive of Buzz Logic, which helps businesses identify influential bloggers.

Samantha DiGennaro, who runs her own strategic communications consulting firm in New York, says many companies either run scared from electronic media or fail to realize how quickly negative comments can jet around the Internet.

“People think, ‘It’s only on the Web. It’s not that important.’ But it’s almost more important than a newspaper or something in print,” she said. “Things live in perpetuity on the Web.”

Some large marketers may blog or respond anonymously. Ms. DiGennaro said appropriate responses were not one size fits all and must be tailored to the particular case. If something merits being addressed, she said, it can better be done in the name of the company rather than hiding behind anonymous postings.

On the technical front, a search engine optimization expert can tweak a site so that it moves a positive posting higher in an Internet search, tending to bury the negative one. Shailen Lodhia, vice president for sales at Submit Express, an optimization firm in Burbank, Calif., estimated results could take three months to a year, and monthly retainers could exceed $3,000.

The best defense is a good offense. Useful practices include registering personalized e-mail addresses as well as gripe domain names — not with the intention of using them but to prevent others doing so. Registering common misspellings as well as derogatory domain names is a good precaution and so is covering extensions like .biz and .org. Costs are minimal, some lower than $50 a year.

Companies that sell products or services should trademark their name to prevent others from using it as a domain name without authorization, legal experts said. Executives may find their only recourse is to sue if someone registers their name as a U.R.L. and uses it to defame them, said Mr. Friedman of Sills Cummis Epstein & Gross. He said that few companies thought to buy potentially negative domain names. Debra Condren, a business psychologist and career adviser, said the occasional negative comment could actually lend credibility to a company rather than tarnish it. She said people expected to see a range of opinions, and if they saw only positive ones on a company blog, for example, they might suspect that negative feedback was being censored. A range of opinions seems authentic.

“Some people, for whatever reason, aren’t going to like or appreciate what you’re selling,” she said. “Accept this as normal, and you won’t stay awake at night letting a disgruntled client or a negative person who decided not to use your services bring you down with what will be transparently obvious to most people as sour grapes feedback.”

Angie Hicks, founder of Angie’s List, a member-generated ratings service where users report their positive or negative experiences with local contractors, said every company gets complaints at some time, but the way it responds can be more telling than the complaint itself.

“You can really see how that company is going to stand by their work based on how they handle problems that come up,” she said.

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 The Street.com - Jeffrey Strain

In a perfect world, everything that we purchase would work exactly how we thought it would and there would never be any problems.

Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world, and the chances are that there are going to be times when things we spend money on move us to make a complaint.

The news and Internet are full of examples of problems between businesses and their customers. Consumer complaints with airlines more than doubledin July to a five-year high. And if you check your local Better Business Bureau, it will likely have plenty of complaints about businesses near you.

Initial Steps

If you find yourself in a situation where you are unsatisfied with the product or service you received, you need to know how to act before you even consider a complaint:

Stay calm: No matter how upset you are, remain calm (but firm). Getting angry and shouting isn’t going to solve your problem any quicker and will likely make resolving it more difficult.

Remain polite: Again, even if this is difficult, always remain polite. Being rude is not going to win you any points and will make it much more difficult to resolve the issue.

Get names: Be sure to get the name of every person you talk to at the beginning of the conversation and have them repeat or spell it, so they know that you have recorded it.

Keep detailed notes: Write down key details of any conversation you have with particular emphasis to any promises that are made. Before ending the conversation, repeat everything of substance to confirm that what you’ve written is correct.

Know what you want: Let the company know exactly what you want to resolve the issue. By letting them know, they don’t have to guess, and it is more likely that you will be offered a resolution that you expect.

Be flexible (when appropriate): If you know exactly what you want and nothing else is going to satisfy you, stick to your guns, but realize that in many situations, being flexible can go a long way toward resolving the issue faster.

How to Complain

With these in mind, here is how to go about effectively complaining to resolve the issue:

Act quickly: Your best bet to resolve a problem is to act as soon as you see the problem. That means if the problem comes to light while you’re still at the store, take up the complaint then and there. If it happens at another point, don’t wait a week before doing anything. The sooner, the better.

Contact the company: If it is a situation where you cannot solve the issue immediately on the premises, then contact the company’s corporate consumer-affairs department by email, online form or phone as soon as possible. You may want to take a few minutes before contacting to write down all the pertinent information that you have so you can give it quickly and efficiently.

Ask for a manager: If you don’t seem to be getting anywhere with your complaint at first, ask to speak with a manager. Generally, the higher the position of the person you talk with, the more authority they will have in solving the issue.

Write a letter: The next step to take if a phone call doesn’t resolve the issue is to place your complaint in writing. Be concise (keep it to a single page) with only the relevant facts, and state what you want. Make sure to include a time period you expect to receive a response to your letter and ask that they reply by written letter. Send it to the company by registered mail and keep a copy for yourself. If you aren’t sure how to write a quality complaint letter, there are plenty of free templates on the Internet.

Take It to the Next Level

If the previous steps have not resolved the issue, then you will need to decide whether it is worth the time and effort to continue to pursue it. If you do decide to escalate the issue, you need to understand what it will take to get the company to listen to you.

“The most important thing a consumer can do to help quickly resolve a dispute is to figure out a way to let the company know it will cost them more to ignore you than to solve your problem. The book Unscrewed by Ron Burley contains a veritable arsenal of effective techniques on that subject,” advises Ben Popken, editor of a consumer-focused blog.

If it is necessary to take it to the next level, here are some additional steps you can take to try and resolve the problem.

Contact relevant organizations: Contact any relevant organization that might have influence:

• Your local Better Business Bureau
• Federal Trade Commission
• State consumer office
• Any overseeing bodies for that particular product or service

These complaints can have an effect on local businesses, and most will want to resolve the issue so it doesn’t damage their reputation.

Contact online Web sites: There are a growing number of Web sites and blogs, like The Consumerist, that let consumers make public, online complaints, which can generate publicity that helps to get the problem resolved:

• Complaints.com
• Consumer Affairs.com
• Ripoff Report

Contact your local media: Many local TV stations and newspapers now have consumer reporters who are always looking for a good story in which someone has been wronged. They can use their media clout to help resolve the issue.

Small-claims court: If all else fails, consider going to small-claims court to resolve the issue. You will need to do a bit of research to make sure that you can actually make a claim there, but if you can, it is relatively inexpensive (usually under $100) to file a claim, and you will get your day to convince a judge that you deserve what you have been demanding.

Unsatisfactory service or buying a product of disappointing quality is never a fun experience. But knowing what you can do to resolve the problem can help settle the dispute as pleasantly and efficiently as possible - while still making sure that your voice is heard loudly and clearly by the offending company.

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Ask an Expert: Word travels fast, so handle complaints quickly - Steve Strauss, Special for USA TODAY

Q: Normally I take customer complaints in stride, but I recently received a complaint that I thought was fairly ridiculous and basically told the customer so. Boy is this a different era! Instead of telling one or two people that he thought I was a jerk, he posted it online and now people are blogging negatively about me and my business. How can I avoid this in the future without always rolling over? — Steve

A: You make a really good point, and I feel your pain, brother! The fact is, for all of us, in this era of increased transparency and viral networking, the stakes have been raised. Today, between personal websites, the so-called blogosphere, chat boards, instant polls, insta-feedback, and so on, ideas travel seemingly at the speed of light. This is especially true when it comes to problems with, and complaints about, your business. Acting like an analogue player in this digital world is a mistake that can kill your business. It is indeed true that in the PI era (pre-Internet), reputations and brands were created far more slowly, and unless yours was a national business or product that got national coverage, it was far more difficult to change people’s impressions of you one way or the other (tainted Tylenol for example). Today if you blow it, it’s not a handful of people who will hear about it, but one or two hundred, or thousand, or. .. . Yep, the stakes have been raised. But the reason to handle customer complaints well goes far beyond being slammed in someone’s blog. Consider just the financial impact of a single complaint. I have heard many times that for every one complaint about your business, there are six other customers who are equally unhappy, but who did not complain. So that is seven unhappy people in total. And, according to a study by Technical Assistance Research Programs (TARP), customers with negative experiences of your business likely tell twice as many people than those with positive experiences. It is estimated that the average disappointed customer tells 9 or 10 people about their bad experience (Note: This represents actual, real-world “gossiping”, not online postings). Seven unhappy campers times 9 told friend equals 63 people who will have a negative impression of your business. How many of those 63 will not patronize your business? A conservative estimate is at least 25%, but probably much more. If your product costs, say, $100, then that single complaint equals at least $1,500 in lost revenue. What does that number equal if the complaint is spread online? Your guess is as good as mine, but it isn’t pretty. The good news here is that plenty can be done to fend-off the real and virtual geometric unhappiness:

•Deal with it. It is also said that of those who do lodge a complaint, fully 70% will do business with you again if you resolve the complaint satisfactorily, and that number jumps to 95% if the happy resolution is prompt.

•Make the customer happy. No, I am not a believer in “the customer is always right” school, because they are not. However, when it comes to complaints, I’m all about extreme customer service. To the extent you can, resolve the matter in the way the customer wants. Not only is this often the right thing to do (after all, people do not normally complain without reason), but it will also prevent the viral negative chain reaction from igniting.

•Have a “no tolerance” policy. Employees who give poor customer service should be gone, period.

•Make sure it is not systemic. The same complaint again and again is a warning sign that you have something amiss. Finally, one way to avoid complaints altogether is to get customer feedback as often as possible. Honest critiques from people who like your business are invaluable.

Today’s tip: Someone once told me that the best piece of business advice he ever received was, “ask them what they want, then give them what they want.” In this time when virtual complaints have such potential power, that may be the best policy of them all. Remember: 95% of unhappy customers will do business with you again if their problems are solved quickly and satisfactorily. The best way to do that is ask them what they want, and then give them what they want.

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Bad Customer Service Negates the Best Marketing Plans - Susan Gunelius

The best laid marketing plans can be destroyed with the smallest customer service mistakes.  The power of the internet continues to grow and that means customer service issues are publicized for the world to see and learn from.Antonio Cangiano’s recent negative experience at his local Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) provides a perfect example of the backlash companies feel when poor customer service situations become top stories in the blogosphere and beyond.  Even Consumerist.com published a post about Antonio’s nightmare of trying to return merchandise at Best Buy whose return policy is unclear and apparently full of loopholes.

Return policies are a prime source of customer complaints lately.  Stores like Target (NYSE: TGT) and Toys ‘R Us are not shy about their new return policies that leave much to be desired from the customer’s point-of-view and have many customers (like me) shopping at competitors’ stores.

Will retailers see the light and revamp their return policies and customer service?  You’d think customer service would be a top priority, but sadly, it falls to the wayside these days.  Great customer service is not the norm anymore, but it does make a great differentiator and keeps customers coming back.

What do you think?  Read Antonio’s story here.  Do you think Best Buy could handle this situation better?  Do you think they’ll react differently now that Antonio’s story is crossing the web? (Comments encouraged!)

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Measuredup.com is a leading site where consumers rate and review the customer service they experience from any business, large or small, anywhere, at anytime. The site is fun, free and easy to use and read by thousands every day.

To read reviews you can either browse by Category Links or use the Measuredup Search Box found on every page of the site. You can also click the “Read Reviews” box or the “Recent Reviews” link.

To write a review click the “Write a Review” box and follow the instructions. It takes about 2 minutes to write a review. Writing a review is quick and easy. You can be anonymous and post a picture. The data we ask for in this area is so we can index your review for other interested people to find. If you are really paranoid about your identity you can put a fake name and email in the boxes. Submitted and approved reviews are available on Measuredup and may also be picked up by search engines or blogs.

Companies that care about and value Customer Service love MeasuredUp. Companies that treat the customer like dirt or place little value on customer service probably hate us. We are here to be a resource to consumers so they have a platform to complain or to praise.

Companies that advertise or sponsor categories on MeasuredUp, or take the MeasuredUp Pledge, show that they care about Customer Service. They may not always be perfect, but by advertising on MeasuredUp they are making the statement that they are trying to listen to customers and improve customer service. Occasionally a review that is not so great might be written about a company that is pretty great. We encourage people to be fair when writing a review and remember that anyone can have a bad day or a misunderstanding.

We invite you to browse the site and post consumer feedback (good or bad) about your own personal experiences with customer service.