Week 2:Communications

     In this blog I will be discussing the pros and cons of communicating with a business as a consumer, including a personal experience I have had. Also whether or not I believe social media is easier when communicating with a company.

     A personal experience I have had difficulty communicating with a business was when I had called Family Mobile to see if I could switch my fiancé's phone number from his prior carrier to Family Mobile. The person I was communicating with wasn't understanding what I was wanting to do. They had to ask merepeatedly which carrier it was and once I told them the prior carrier, they had said they weren't sure. I had been hung up on and put on hold multiple times as well as given many mixed answers for almost 2 and a half hours. The people I talked to had very heavy foreign accents, so sometimes it was difficult to understand them. Eventually we got it resolved, that type of difficult communication has to do with language barriers and heavy accents that I sometimes cannot understand.

    In my opinion, yes I believe social media makes it so much easier to get noticed and get a problem solved. Why? Because with using social media, a lot of companies and businesses have people who focus just on their social media. So with social media all you have to do is tweet them, leave a comment or message on Facebook, or leave a review on Yelp. By doing these things you get noticed, because you are directly interacting with their customer service representative for their social media. It makes it quick and easy for a company to see them and respond right away, which we as consumers want.

   I have had a few positive experiences communicating with a business through social media. One was with a company called MakeUp Geek. It's an makeup brand whose lovely owner is Marlena. She is very involved in her company's social media. I have tweeted them about a question I had for when something was going to restock. They responded within about 30 minutes to an hour. They replied to my tweet as well as sent me a direct message to answer my concern.

    If I had my own business on Social Media, the way I would respond to positive and negative comments would be to take them with a grain assault. If it was positive commentary, I would retweet or like the comment and respond to the person who made the comment, thanking them and saying how much I appreciate their business. As far as negative comments go, I would politely send them a private message or email if I have it, asking them what I can do to make their experience a positive one. Questions about what was the problem, how was your experience, etc..

  Some of the issues that made my Family Mobile experience negative was the language barrier and the accent challenges I had. As well as being hung up on and put on hold for over two hours.  I also think it was the way they answered the call, very rude and disrespectfully, which makes me not a happy customer. I also never got a straight answer from them, so we decided that it was best to just get a whole new number rather than keep trying for 48 hours to see if it would work.

  What made my Makeup Geek experience positive is that the owner of the company is the one who retweets and replies back to comments or messages herself. Which for me is a great way to be with your customers. Another reason is that the response time was quick and accurate to what I would have expected it to be. The owner of the company is also very good at thanking her customers and appreciating them for helping grow her company.