[kskthere]

Social media has fundamentally changed the way businesses interact with customers and the public at large. It has become a powerful source of sharing experiences and complaining about products or services. What started as an innovative way to approach the marketplace has become an essential tool for marketing, public relations, and customer service. But as easy as social media has made it to connect with customers, it does come with a few drawbacks. Complaining customers are, unfortunately, an inevitable fact of business life. The way companies respond to and handle their complaints will determine whether their customers share on social media how terrible the company is or will remain happily loyal to the brand. Customers will no longer bear with unresponsive or unsatisfactory customer service. They will look elsewhere and share their damaging reviews on dealings with them. It’s no surprise that social media is fast-becoming an essential component of customer service strategies.

In the light of this, raises some important questions:
- Has social media become the sort of easy access for customers to reach out organizations when genuine problems are not addressed?
- Has it become a last resort go-to before proceeding legally when they feel cheated or disregarded?
- Do companies really think customers' social media rants damage their image?
- Is it a double-edged sword?

And the answer to the above questions, mostly, is "YES" in many of the genuine cases. There were many instances where companies had desired or undesired results on how promptly they acted.

Four months back one of a Baleno-community members had a tyre-bubble formation issue. His car was just 4 months old then and run around 4000 km. Dealer, service centre and tyre manufacturer denied the tyre replacement under warranty, and also received Rejection letter from the tyre manufacturer stating the same. When he complained this issue on Twitter, the next day he got a call from the TSM and issue got resolved. End result: 100% tyre replacement, amount shared 75:25 between the tyre manufacturer and the dealer.

A repeat of this happened last month where another customer had also faced similar treatment. When he turned to social media, he got 75% tyre replacement expenses.







I'm bemused by why they have to alter their decision later in favour of the customer. Is it not contrary to their rule book and policies to do that? Please shed some light on this.

NOTE: Permission to post images, documents and invoices has been duly taken fromt the customer.

[V.Narayan]

Most businesses are still learning to figure out how to deal with customer issues on social media and how to deal with issues before they get to social media. Most are yet to learn that social media has shifted power into the hands of the customer and in case of mid-tier and small-tier complaints these are best sorted out in a fair manner than the brusque colonial 'deal with the natives' attitude. Before we look for askance lets view our own employers and the businesses (we run) and how they deal with social media. From the businesses point of view social media is a business guilty no matter what and the readers form judgements before listening to both sides. So caving in to a complaint on social media is all about buy the peace and move on.

[naveen.raju]

Mostly "Yes" to your questions but it's one way to give a genuine feedback so that the manufacturers get to know rather than their "so-called feedback call" and more importantly it's the best way to warn other customers.

I have had many instances where I reported a bad experience or should I say "experiences"here on TeamBHP. Few are via emails to the manufacturers which am not mentioning it here (Swift service when they crashed my car, Maruti driving school experience).

Case 1:
https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/india...ml#post4393791 (The next-gen Hyundai Santro)

My whole experience is shared here. Soon after this post went live, I received calls/texts from the outsourced marketing agency, the main marketing agency and even Hyundai asking me to delete the post. I declined it and said the post will stay online so that others can see how these surveys are done. Few people came to my house and requested me to take the post down.
Social media impact - Oh yes!

Case 2
https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/india...s-3-years.html (Popular Hyundai, Vyttila - Pathetic service continues for 3 years!)

I generally stay cool with these kind of service short comings. But after experiencing this for over 3 years, I just lost my cool. These guys were taking me for a ride (I had referred few of my friends and family members, all 3 Hyundai cars were being serviced here, I had posted a good sales post and few customers did mention this post when they visited the place) and still they just didn't take my feedback seriously.

After this thread went live, I got calls from the SA, service manager, dealership owner, Hyundai head office etc. Even after taking back the car, the problem still persist and the attitude of the service manager totally changed. I am anyways not going back there and have recommended my friends not to go there.
Social media impact - Yes, sort of.

[kskthere]

Originally Posted by V.Narayan

Before we look for askance lets view our own employers and the businesses (we run) and how they deal with social media.

I'm sure you wouldn't believe me if I say I would do it differently, but all I can say is, I'll never change my decision because somebody complained. I guess TSM has the authority to change the decision made by service centre, if required. I came to know (please correct me if I'm wrong) that every dealer/service centre is allotted some funds annually to be used as goodwill warranty. So, for any repair/service that doesn't come under standard or extended warranty or in some rear cases, the same will be done under goodwill warranty only based on how customer pushes the envelope to the limits. The above two examples mentioned above by me I think are covered under goodwill warranty only.

Originally Posted by naveen.raju

I generally stay cool with these kind of service short comings. But after experiencing this for over 3 years, I just lost my cool. These guys were taking me for a ride (I had referred few of my friends and family members, all 3 Hyundai cars were being serviced here, I had posted a good sales post and few customers did mention this post when they visited the place) and still they just didn't take my feedback seriously.

After this thread went live, I got calls from the SA, service manager, dealership owner, Hyundai head office etc. Even after taking back the car, the problem still persist and the attitude of the service manager totally changed. I am anyways not going back there and have recommended my friends not to go there.
Social media impact - Yes, sort of.

That is really pathetic service. I think every dealer/service centre must comply with rules, regulations, guidelines etc laid out, still they fail to follow them every now and then, and face customers' indignation. Now, everything is becoming transparent and also customers becoming more aware of many aspects, it's time for them to change their attitude.

[katchkamalesh]

Companies are very particular about resolving customer complaints as any bad publicity will affect their sales and the brand reputation. Also, the competitors will be ready to take up that opportunity.

Even I have benefitted from voicing issues on social media.

Recently I paid and placed an order through swiggy for domino’s pizza instead of using dominos’ app and even after 45-50 mins of placing the order there was no sight of the pizzas. When I raised a complaint with swiggy’s customer care they were more interested in closing my issue rather than resolving it. Their response was that they tried to contact the restaurant and since the restaurant did not answer their call, it was up to me to find the status of the order. Worse still, the contact number of the restaurant in the app was wrong and hence the only option for me was to go to the restaurant to check the status of the order. Fortunately for me, the pizzas were delivered within 10-15 mins of escalation.

I was not happy with the way customer team from swiggy interacted with me and they blamed the restaurant for this. I posted about this on social media and one executive from swiggy called to apologize and in addition offered to refund the money as well. He also explained me that ordering dominos pizza on swiggy can be a hit or miss. Swiggy only takes the order and from there on swiggy is kept in the dark about the order.

May be the customer care team who takes care of social media complaints are more empathic and hence they are able to solve the issue or the companies must have directed this team to solve issues at any cost.

End of day, it is the customer who wins. (there are smaller companies who do not care what customer feels and they just ignore the posts on social media, they are likely to be the biggest losers in this connected age)

P.S. I also understand that when the company is not able to solve the issue, they always want to connect at a more personal level and this is deliberately done so that public is not able to see what is happening. They also give good discounts and refunds to retain you.

[kskthere]

Originally Posted by katchkamalesh

P.S. I also understand that when the company is not able to solve the issue, they always want to connect at a more personal level and this is deliberately done so that public is not able to see what is happening. They also give good discounts and refunds to retain you.

Yes, true that. Some mistakes happen inadvertently and some deliberately. It happened with me during the purchasing process of my car. The RM goofed up big time at 3 instances and that cost him around ₹15,000. He was innocent and confusing, and had no proper knowledge of what he was doing. A few months later, I regretted to have known that he quit his job (planning to pen down my ownership review of my Baleno and will cover up these issues in more detail). But yes, there are some people/companies who try to contact you personally to retain your loyalty.

[GTO]

Rather than just social media, I'd say it's the impact of the INTERNET! The single most game-changing technology we have seen in our lifetime. Period.

What the internet has done has given power back in the hands of the customer. If one complains on any large media (including Team-BHP), we have seen how quickly resolutions follow - sample thread (Paid for Z800, but no bike! Kawasaki uncooperative. EDIT: Bikes delivered (page 11)).

Imagine how life was before the internet? If you had a severe problem with your car or were defrauded, what could you do? Nothing other than go for the legal route which would take years. And it would be a lone battle with you alone vs an army of a legal team from the manufacturer.

The internet has given a voice to the customer and entirely changed the dynamics of the seller-buyer relationship. Indirectly, it has drastically improved product quality & customer service.

[katchkamalesh]

Originally Posted by kskthere

The RM goofed up big time at 3 instances and that cost him around ₹15,000.

Off topic:

Are you sure that it cost him Rs 15,000 or did he tell you that?

This is one of the tactics that these guys retort to when it comes to covering up. They make us feel bad for them or plead with us to not complain so that they can get away without any punishment. I can’t believe that instead of owing up and correcting themselves, people want to keep committing mistakes and get away with that.

Even my car delivery was screwed up because of plain laziness of the advisor. For eg. She was reluctant walk 200/300 odd meters to show me the vehicle when I requested to have a look at the vehicle for the second time. She gave me weird reasons and I trusted her. When I found out that she had lied, I raised this issue with her manger and the manager gave me some discounts. When I haggled for more, the manager told me that the advisor will have to bear my discount amount.

I had a contact in the showroom and I got to know that the advisors are not punished for petty issues. The showroom takes a cut in the profit margins in case where customers are given more discounts.

[kskthere]

Originally Posted by GTO

Rather than just social media, I'd say it's the impact of the INTERNET!

Absolutely! I should have mentioned it as that way.

Originally Posted by katchkamalesh

Off topic:

Are you sure that it cost him Rs 15,000 or did he tell you that?

Yes, I'm pretty sure it did cost him that much money, and also his job too. He paid the price for the blunders he did.

Regarding another issue, I've searched our forum but couldn't find anything related to it. So I'm sharing my experience here.

I came to know that Sai Service had been fooling customers by selling "Sai Extended Warranty" instead of "Maruti/Nexa Extended Warranty" from many years. They mention it as just "Extended Warranty" during purchasing time, and explains the same terms and conditions as Maruti's. One will come to know only after Standard Warranty expires about this and one has to visit only Sai service centres for any warranty-related issues thereafter. I became a victim of this too, as do three of my friends, from the same showroom (Sai Service, Somajiguda).

During my Baleno's 4th service, RKS service centre SA told me that my extended warranty expires in a week and why don't I renew it. I was shell shocked on hearing this. Then I contacted Nexa Sai Service seeking an explanation on this. The Sr.RM tried to calm me down and even offered me to extend the warranty for the 5th year also. But I insisted on him changing it to Maruti/Nexa extended warranty immediately, otherwise the same will appear on social media and other forums. Not only they changed it for me but also for my friends too.

Has anyone knew about this already? Please share your thoughts.

This was what mentioned on the Invoice:


My 4th service Invoice. See highlighted red box, EW: NA


Invoice of steering column replacement done on my car recently:.

[acidkill]

As a business owner all I can say is, sure there are poor business practices that need to be shamed out by internet users. But there are exceptions:

1. There are bad apples amongst the buyer community who will without hesitation just plainly shame a business as a means of revenge or aggression, because the owners said NO to their demands. Even if the demands are unjustified.
2. The internet provides a means of exaggerating this aggression because it provides the buyer anonymity, Their responses can always be biased or even exaggerated towards their own point of view simply because the internet is an open arena of opinion and not evidence.
3. Sellers cannot retort with equal aggression and you will find them speak in limited sentences trying to sound as professional and trite as possible.


All I will say is 70/30. 70% of the time the vendor maybe wrong. But 30% of the time it is the buyer who is also doing something unjust.