Customer Service in the Age of Social Media

The protocol for fielding customer complaints and suggestions has fundamentally changed in the age of social media and social networking.

Pizza Hut (@PizzaHut on Twitter) has sent 10 messages via their Twitter account since I sent them a Direct Message (DM) regarding an egregious customer service issue perpetrated by one of their Unit Managers. Initially, it puzzled me why a routine call-in order would be routed to a manager. Apparently frustrated by hearing similar complaints from other disgruntled customers through the night about their lack of core products and refusal to substitute, the manager hung up on me. Could it be that the nightly special may not be not-so-special? I never raised my voice, cursed, or acted belligerently. Unsuspectingly, I used the one word (substitution) that sent him over the edge. What is special about luring customers in with a promo, when you lack the products to make it? I simply inquired about their substitution (or lack of) policy since they couldn't honor the promotion.

I had a similar incident with this location before and had placed a complaint via the corporate website. I never received a response, even though I checked the box indicating I wanted to hear from someone. I placed a second complaint--still no response.

Pizza Hut has been recently getting some great restaurant industry coverage for their social media activity and embracing new technologies. They even received front page coverage for their successful launch of their iPhone app. Consequently, I figured their 20,000 follower Twitter account (which they use to send daily propaganda) would be more frequently checked and get a response. I figured this crack squad of in-touch marketers heading up social media may respond quicker and more favorably than the rest of the laagering, bulky machine. I even figured that they would check to see who I was and realize I had over 6,500 restaurant industry followers (primarily consisting of restaurant marketing executives, owners, operators, media, publicists, etc) and that in an effort to showcase their departments’ prowess, would dazzle me and my followers with a great response. Wow, I was wrong!

Turns out, rather than respond to my direct messages, the person running the @PizzaHut account decided to send out a flurry of media outreach messages. They even sent their messages to my media following...Interesting. For an organization as famed as Pizza Hut and as Social Media savvy as they are recognized, I would expect a better response.

The Lessons Learned: Our industry is completely ill-equipped to respond to customer complaints and suggestions via social media such as Facebook and Twitter.

The rules of crisis communication and customer service protocol are well established in the realm of the offline. However, Social Media did not exist as a category of Internet traffic less than 5 years ago. Now, it represents nearly 20% of global Internet traffic. It is clearly apparent that technology is growing faster than our industry is responding.

Any publicist worth their salt will tell you that you need a crisis communications plan in place to deal with the common crises faced by the restaurant industry. Any operations manager worth their salt will tell you that you need to respond quickly, competently and with sincere hospitality to customer complaints received via the store-level. Thanks to Social Media, word of mouth travels much faster and wider now than ever before. Positive and responsive protocols for handling complaints must be in place and used immediately. Sticking your head in the sand, hanging up on customers, or chasing them out the door is not an effective protocol, @PizzaHut.

Blogger Mohan Patel is a marketing grad student based in India. I am not affiliated with Aaron Allen or his consulting firm but recommend him as a restaurant consultant to any company seeking restaurant marketing strategy and business improvement ideas.