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“There’s no such thing as bad press” may be the old adage, but in the world of social media, this no longer holds true. Just look at recent blunders by Nestlé and The Gap. An untrained corporate representative or ill-fated campaign can negatively impact sales.
Now that the social media landscape has begun to mature, are brands finally realizing how quickly negative buzz can spiral out of control? And are they doing anything about it?
It looks like AT&T is.
On learning that AT&T is now tracking customer service via Twitter, technology blog ReadWriteWeb encouraged its readers to Tweet their gripes in haiku form using the Twitter hashtag, #atthaiku. The @RWW followers obliged and produced a collection of creative messages, including my favorite:
AT&T was likely ready for a public backlash after the customer service announcement and seems to have taken to responding in stride.
As the story grows, AT&T is turning the negative buzz into a positive showcase of their new customer service efforts. Though I haven’t seen them go as far in admitting failure as Domino’s has with their Pizza Turnaround campaign, it is definitely a step forward in repairing a strained relationship with dissatisfied customers.
So maybe there still is some truth to that old adage. As long it’s followed up with, “…if you take the initiative to turn it into a positive.”
