Week 3: Business + Consumer Communication

Luckily for me, I’ve never needed to reach out and communicate with businesses through social media in regards to any issues with the business or product. Although I haven’t personally had experiences on social media for that reason, there are several ways that businesses and consumers can communicate in both positive and negative ways on social media.

Social media can make it much easier to get the attention of a business/brand, but sometimes they get so many messages and comments due to how large of a following they have that these messages/comments can get lost in the shuffle. If your communication attempt isn’t received, I would say just keep trying and if all else fails, find a customer service number or email that you can reach out to instead!

One positive interaction that comes to mind when thinking of examples is of an Instagram fitness influencer. Apparently she had been receiving complaints or concerns about the timeliness of her responses to customers who had purchased her fitness accessories (resistance bands, ankle straps, etc) and hadn’t yet received their confirmation numbers and/or shipping information. She accepted the complaints and was proactive in communicating that the issues would be handled and gave customers another means for communicating with her by sharing her business email for clients.

In regards to responding to negative and/or positive interactions on my own business social media, I would try to always be as gracious and open minded as possible. I would listen to whatever needed to be said and handle it accordingly. If there was ever an issue of spam/bullying/trolling, I would block or report the offending page, but in any other instance I will always give a positive response and good vibes from my end. It’s important to me that my customers not only expect the highest quality in my products, but in every aspect of my business, including customer service/personability.