Week 2 Part A: Communication Between Business & Consumer

 

As social media has grown it has become easier and easier for a consumer to reach a company or get the help that they want or rather a better end result. Once up a time there use to be a time when companies would only give any attention to a customer if they wrote in and mailed a letter to a company. Consumers are taking things to social media to get what they want from a business. I have a unique experience with this because I was the one customers would call and scream at when something didn’t go well. Then if my department did a good or a bad job, then the consumer would go and post online Facebook, or twitter and describe their experience. I know they weren’t mad at me but rather the outcome to their own problem. 

Companies now have a great opportunity to reach out to consumers and deliver outstanding results and they do this with the help of social media. In the past consumers would often feel helpless if they have been left on hold or didn’t get a good end result or just felt frustrated. Now if consumers feel that way. They go straight to Facebook or Twitter, Instagram and can contact a company. Companies have the opportunity to listen and help and retain a customer. That is what is most important retaining a consumer. Social media allows for a business to retain consumers more efficiently.

Reviews I feel are always all over the place. When I look up reviews I always go to the worst first. I do this because I want to figure out if the problem was something that the business could control or was it because the consumer wasn’t patient enough. I was looking up a restaurant in the Los Angeles area and I noticed that it ha overall good reviews, but then it had a few bad ones. I reviewed the bad ones, one bad one that stuck out was that the power was out in the restaurant. It wasn’t only the restaurant it was the entire street. The consumer was mad that the kitchen couldn’t cook all the food and they couldn’t order what they wanted. Wow. Clearly this person gave no grace in light of the situation. I ended up eating there and the food was great anyways. 

When leaving a review I always do a few steps depending on the situation. If I am going to leave a positive review I  always mention names dates and times. I want to be sure the business knows who helped me, and why I am so happy. This tells anyone reading the review that I was happy, it give reasons why I am happy, and why I will return. When I receive terrible service I write a review first and get my frustration out. Once I am done, I wait a few minutes after I am no longer upset then I return to the review. Once I return to the review I rewrite it and give reasons why I won’t return or why the consumer shouldn’t use the product or the business. I only go to social media if I feel the business didn’t here my concern over the phone or in person. 

If I had my own business (which I plan on doing soon) I would try and respond to all comments either bad or good. This is the opportunity to start a conversation with the consumers. If it is a negative review, you state that you see the review and do what you can to make the customer happy to help retain the customer over time. If it is a positive review, I would thank the consumer for their business.

Writing a review. I don’t go out much these days. So, I will give a review on my last two big chain restaurant experiences. The first one was recently and the other a few moths ago. 

Review One Islands

When we got home with our take out and started to plate the food we noticed that they gave us the wrong salad. I was so upset! We called the restaurant and they apologized for the error. We went back to the restaurant and they apologized comped out meal and gave us a gift card for the mistake. This was so great because we will be returning after the apology that we received. The food was great as well, burger perfect, the correct salad was delicious. 

Review Two Joes Crab Shack 

I went in to the restaurant expecting to have a decent meal with my children. I was wrong, I waited an hour to be seated. Which normally is fine, but no-one was in the restaurant. I will give them a pass since Covid hit. Well, it gets worse. We get seated and from there we waited 20 minutes for waters, then another 5 minutes after that to out in our order.  How could this be when the restaurant is empty? The horror continued we wanted water refills and no-one AROUND. Water!! That was all we wanted water. No drink refills offered no asking if the food is to our liking. Just terrible service I will never return again. 

The picture included is a car from the car museum in Las Vegas, I took the picture because I love the color green and the white walls on the car. Just an image that love. I can just image rolling down the street in this beauty. Riding low and slow in style.