{"id":2527,"date":"2011-02-11T14:03:15","date_gmt":"2011-02-11T14:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/?p=2527"},"modified":"2011-02-11T14:03:15","modified_gmt":"2011-02-11T14:03:15","slug":"how-to-alienate-a-customer-in-just-three-easy-steps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/2011\/02\/how-to-alienate-a-customer-in-just-three-easy-steps\/","title":{"rendered":"How to alienate a customer in just three easy steps"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"The really<\/em> great thing about social media is this: it\u2019s faster and easier than ever to ignore, alienate and piss off a customer!<\/p>\n

Case in point. As quick background, I joined Weight Watchers 9 days ago (not that I\u2019m counting). It\u2019s not a brand I ever thought I would associate with, but, well, that Jennifer Hudson TV commercial sucked me in, to tell you the truth. I know how to lose weight (lots of experience), but counting calories has gotten tedious so I thought maybe there\u2019s something to this whole \u201cpoints\u201d thing.<\/p>\n

HOW TO ALIENATE A CUSTOMER IN THREE EASY STEPS:<\/p>\n

Step One: Present a compelling promise with fine print that basically negates it.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cJOIN FOR FREE!\u201d Mouse type: we\u2019re waiving a joining fee but it\u2019s still going to cost you $60 to get started. If there actually is a one-week free trial, bury it in your site architecture so your customer doesn\u2019t see it.<\/p>\n

Step Two: Follow worst practices of Twitter use.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Follow less than 1% of your followers. Never<\/strong> reply to them when they tweet about you or directly ask you questions. Post on your profile, \u201cHave questions? E-mail our customer service for the quickest response!\u201d<\/p>\n

Completely ignore the fact that one-fourth of respondents who complain via Facebook or Twitter expect a reply within 60 minutes \u2014 and 6% expect a response within 10 minutes, according to the study<\/a> by Lightspeed Research and the Internet Advertising Bureau UK.<\/p>\n

After all, why answer questions responsively on Twitter, when you can\u2026<\/p>\n

Step Three: Apologize on your email contact form for the fact that it might take you up to two days to respond, then wait six days. When you do respond, provide a robotic non-answer to the question. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Never mind that if consumers notify a company of a problem using its Web site, 50% are happy to wait up to a day for a reply and 27% are content to wait for up to three days, according to the same study<\/a> referenced above.<\/p>\n

(Bonus Step: If you really want to get your customers going, throw in a dysfunctional web site with recipe search that if your user\u2019s cursor goes outside the margins, they have to start over. And a dysfunctional mobile app that doesn\u2019t allow them to favorite recipes.)<\/p>\n

Isn\u2019t the point of social media to communicate AT your customers? You wouldn\u2019t want to communicate with them, maybe nudge them towards enthusiasm or advocacy. That would be too much work.<\/p>\n

Sue Spaight<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The really great thing about social media is this: it\u2019s faster and easier than ever to ignore, alienate and piss off a customer! Case in point. As quick background, I joined Weight Watchers 9 days ago (not that I\u2019m counting). It\u2019s not a brand I ever thought I would associate with, but, well, that Jennifer … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[137,618],"tags":[1042,647,836,835,1043,30,1044],"class_list":["post-2527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-susanspaight","tag-alienate","tag-customer","tag-easy","tag-fast","tag-faster","tag-social-media","tag-steps"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2527"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2527\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2529,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2527\/revisions\/2529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesocialcmo.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}