Posts Tagged ‘CSR’

Social media is the great equalizer. Thanks to social networks, blogs and forums the consumers finally have a way to “stick it” to companies that they’ve received poor services or defective products from. The “little guy” is not so little when his complaint can pass along virally to millions online, threatening to sink multi-million dollar marketing campaigns or tarnishing a brand name beyond recovery.

This is hardly news. We’ve already seen empowered consumers embarrass established brands with a single comment or video. And the latest brand to feel the wrath of a customer’s scorn is Southwest Airlines. This weekend, cult-icon filmmaker Kevin Smith sent a series of tweets to his followers claiming that Southwest Airlines kicked him off a flight for being “too fat”. Southwest Airlines’ response to Kevin Smith’s tweets was predictable, as the airline profusely apologized for any inconvenience and insured its Twitter followers that this would never happen again.

However, I can’t shake off this lingering thought of how consumers who know they can bring about a brand’s destruction via social media, will abuse the medium and ultimately raise their expectations of customer satisfaction to unrealistic levels.

It may be the case that like children learning they can get what they want from their parents by crying louder, consumers have found a way to get “great service” by threatening to “brand bash” online.