Re: Social Media Lip Service Doesn’t Replace Good Customer Service

robgrady — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 19:37:05 -0000

TIVegas responded to my post and I think it is a great opportunity for a second examination of Social Media Support challenges. I didn't go into the detailed list of problems of the stay since it wasn't really pertinent to the point I was trying to convey but the response highlights the challenge of the social medium especially with the lack of the appropriate context. Social customer service lacks continuous context and the elements that we take for granted such as tonal inflections and facial expressions in everyday conversations (and Email too). Let's explore the response in more detail...

"As soon as we found your complaint again on Twitter, we immediately engaged with you to see if we could help. Once we found you in our Reservations system under a different name, we saw the note about your odor complaint and that customer service had been offered in the form of the $50 credit. When we advised you of this and apologized via Twitter DM, you seemed content so we chose not to bother you further."

* Indeed this is partially correct, on the surface. In most customer service engagements I would have the ability to say, "Oh it might be under XYZ too because my wife booked it." In this case the fact I gave a different name snagged the process. I couldn't communicate this easily.
* TIVegas didn't have context or a history of the actual sequence of errant events
* Last year I was double-billed and Roy Walker (Accounts Receivable) never responded. This happened last year and I gave up. They couldn't know this but I was already tweaked.
* Air conditioning broken
* Toilet broken
* Television didn't work
* Air conditioning fixed and left bad smell
* Toilet broke and fixed (Yay! Good job TI!)
* Air conditioning broken again and leaving tomorrow
* Moved room and offered $50 food certificate

* And the $50 credit for food is out of context. It was offered was at 10:30PM at night when I was leaving in 3:30am, 5.5 hours later. The customer service folks suggested that it could be used next time but that doesn't really make up for the total sequence of bad events. I suspect that TIVegas didn't have access to all of those issues that transpired since they only referred to a single issue -- bad smell which was actually a result of the Broken AC. With that said, perhaps it is the standard offering for folks leaving within 6 hours to be offered $50 of food they can't use.
* It seems that they interpreted my response of, "I appreciate the message" to mean I no longer have any issues and I am content with the lack of any results from this exchange. Again without any tonal inflections, facial expressions or dialogue it makes it difficult to come to a conclusion. Add the fact that I'm constrained to 140 characters, it is likely that something will get missed.
"We'd be happy to do this for you, however, debugging email issues is often something we need help from our guests to resolve - especially when the guest name differs from the reservation."

* With regard to my missing bill, most customer service takes care of it and ensures the problem gets resolved. In this case I was referred to call someone else. They assumed without dialogue that I errantly gave the wrong Email address and given that they started with the wrong name in the initial search negates their ability to send me an Email. In fact I provided my business card so the likelihood that it is wrong on that card is pretty small. They seemed to figure out how to charge my card so sending me the bill would seem to be relatively simple.
It is amusing that we've moved from twitter to a response on my blog. I never received a direct Email or a phone call. Bottom line is that not a lot can be described in 140 characters and the context surrounding the events. I'm sure that @TIVegas is trying their best to respond to my visit issues but without the context it makes it difficult to effectively respond or even comment.

Social Media (and now blog posts) don't always carry the context necessary to even have a discussion.

Re: Social Media Lip Service Doesn’t Replace Good Customer Service

TI Customer Service — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 18:11:34 -0000

Hi Rob,

Thanks for your thoughtful post and suggestions. We agree that a purely social media customer service experience isn't ideal, and we're working hard to close this gap every day.

Here's how we supported our social media efforts with offline customer service. During your stay, we attempted to fix the problem with your air conditioning. When you complained about a strange odor, we offered you a $50 food and beverage credit for the inconvenience.

As soon as we found your complaint again on Twitter, we immediately engaged with you to see if we could help. Once we found you in our Reservations system under a different name, we saw the note about your odor complaint and that customer service had been offered in the form of the $50 credit. When we advised you of this and apologized via Twitter DM, you seemed content so we chose not to bother you further. In the case of your bill not arriving via email, your best bet is to call Reservations at 1-800-288-7206 and make sure they have your correct email address before requesting that they resend your bill. We'd be happy to do this for you, however, debugging email issues is often something we need help from our guests to resolve - especially when the guest name differs from the reservation.

We appreciate all our guests' patience while we perfect the coordination of our online and offline customer service efforts. Blog posts like yours, Rob, help us do just that. Thank you!

Sincerely,
TI Vegas Help

Rob Grady - Latest Comments

Re: Social Media Lip Service Doesn’t Replace Good Customer Service

Re: Social Media Lip Service Doesn’t Replace Good Customer Service