Carri Bugbee pointed me to this article about the suckiness of Facebook customer service, when she noted on her twitter stream recently that they had yet again complicated the User Interface (UI) by requiring users to add a plug-in in order to upload pictures. My guess in regards to the plug-in is they want to get more data, but needlessly complicating the UI in the mix just seems to create more problems and potentially gets people to leave Facebook. So why doesn’t Facebook care about what its users have to say?
My guess is they’ve gotten too big and like many other big companies they don’t think what the user has to say actually matters. It seems rather odd that its a social media company that thinks this way, if only because social media has proven that if enough customers speak out, the company will feel the pain and pressure. Than again, for that to occur, as I’ve mentioned before, it’s important to get enough people with substantial social influence to speak out, so that their followers accordingly bring the pressure to bear on the company.
At some point, the continued changes that Facebook makes to the user interface, which are done in a manner that inconveniences the user, will catch up to Facebook and more people will leave then join. It might be useful for Facebook to remember that if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it, and to also remember that good customer service engenders the loyalty and trust that keeps people using the site.
Realistically, customer service can’t solve or satisfy every customer, but ideally the majority of people should come away feeling that the problem was addressed in a manner that showed them the company cared. When companies don’t handle customer service responsibly, it may for the moment cause the customer to leave frustrated, but in the age of social media, it can bring the torches and pitchforks to the gates, while causing current customers to start questioning whether they will really be taken care of.
Hopefully Facebook will appreciate that and improve their customer service, especially as there business is based on the very medium that so many people are starting to use to get their voices heard by big companies who’d rather ignore them.
