Imagine that you are an employee at a store and a customer walks in with a complaint. Upon hearing the complaint, you then either look at them without acknowledging the complaint, or you decide to just turn around and not give them the time of day.
Sounds like a great way to lose business right?
Well, that’s basically what Crunch Fitness, the gym I’m a member of in NYC, has done via social media.
Last Saturday I went to the gym at 8:15 a.m. to do a quick spin session on the bike. To my surprise, and others standing out in the chilly 45 degree temperature, they had not yet opened even though they are supposed to open at 8 a.m.
By the time 8:30 rolled around, I’d run out of time because there was no telling when they were going to open and at a minimum I would be on the bike for 30 minutes, and I had another appointment quickly approaching.
Before leaving I took a photo of other members standing out in the cold and sent it to Crunch on Twitter and Facebook. Here we are several days later and they’ve not even taken 5 second to respond to either message and simply say “We are sorry for the inconvenience.”
This is a classic example of how some companies don’t “get” social media. If you are going to be in the space, you MUST have a system in place to respond to customer service situations. If you don’t, and you simply choose to ignore them, you are doing exactly what was mentioned in the first paragraph.
