My bank (NatWest) kept sending me my bank statements in Braille, even though I had opted out of paper statements completely. Six months of calling them up on the phone or going into branch; each time I was told it was sorted, only for the next month another braille statement to arrive. Complained about it on twitter and within four hours it was fixed.
They don't seem to care unless there's a chance of other people noticing.
I don't think it's malice, or at least as cynical as you make it. It might as well be as simple as the social customer service department being younger and thus not having been subject to the iron law of bureaucracy for so long. Their budget possibly comes out of marketing, not customer service, and thus isn't subject to being considered a pure cost centre. Social media is sexy, when someone from that department makes a call, they are more likely to reach someone who think it's fun to dig into an issue that when someone from the phone bank (to the extent they're encouraged or even allowed to) reaches out. Finally, both volume and S/N of social media pings are much better for many firms as long as the people contacting you through those channels tend towards being young and savvy, but that will change quickly as people catch on, and the canned "Oh I'm sorry to hear that, please call our customer service department on ...." responses that we're already starting to see will become much more prevalent.
When thinking about customer service in big companies, it's important to remember that the vast majority of calls legitimately are of the sort that only require a very simple action to be taken, and then to be disconnected as quickly as possible. However frustrating, it's not irrational hatred of customers that makes it difficult to break through that assumption when you do have a more complicated issue.
That's like telling someone upset about a cold meal not to blame the waiter because it could be the cook's fault. Who's at fault is not at issue. What's at issue is that the customer can only get problems solved when the company's reputation is at stake, which is a failure of integrity.
> They don't seem to care unless there's a chance of other people noticing.
Many years ago I was having trouble getting some accounts closed with NatWest (after a few cockups on their part already I moved to FirstDirect). I happen to work for a company that produces compliance software and offered related consultancy so we had copies of the FSA (then new, since reformed as the FCA) complaints manual lying around.
After months trying to get traction on the closing the accounts (including warnings of charges because one of them was "under funded" by virtue of having been emptied because I wanted it closed) including a couple of face-to-face meetings in the branch (back then little was done remotely), everything magically sorted itself out after the day I went in and read from that manual while waiting to be seen...
It isn't just "others noticing": any sort of fallout gets things more noticed.
In hindsight I had a case to just go strait to the authority about it and probably should have done. The bank would probably have got a five grand fine and I might have been compensated for my wasted time...
As a counterexample, I've gotten great service from very large companies by sending them private communication via social media (Facebook messages, for instance) - mostly because I really don't want to fill up my social media feeds with whiny complaints.
I mostly do it because it saves me driving in and/or waiting on hold, but those messages usually seem to be answered by the same team (and are generally handled very well).
> They don't seem to care unless there's a chance of other people noticing.
Which is one reason why tweeting works well (or it does if you have enough followers). I've had great results that way from several firms, though I have not tweeted to Apple.
They don't seem to care unless there's a chance of other people noticing.