Week 3a: Communication

When it comes to communicating with a business, I feel that having a strong customer service team is essential to keeping customer's satisfied. Since calls are always being made to businesses, there needs to be a number of staff ready and available to answer any and all questions that customers may have about the products and/or services. With that being said, I still find it difficult being able to communicate with many businesses over the phone and even through their social media pages. Depending on the situation, the best way to get in touch with businesses is going to their store and talking to the staff in person. Although, I personally think it is very difficult to get in contact with staff at the Apple store, over the phone and in person, because they are always so busy with customers that it could take a while to speak to anyone. And even after speaking to someone, the problem may not be solved for another few days if they're booked with appointments.

Social media to me, is more where businesses spread their brand awareness and promote new products or services to their consumers. If it's a big business, like Costco or FashionNova, it may be easier to call their customer service team to get the problem resolved instead of trying to reach them through their Instagram or Facebook pages. Hundreds of people comment and message big businesses a day, it might take a few days for the customer service staff to read and respond to those comments. Social media is a great platform for customer's to write reviews and engage with the business, but I don't think it is easier to get noticed or get a problem solved.

Communicating to a business through social media can be hard and take multiple days for them to get back to you. Although, I private messaged a company, Gymshark, before asking them a question I had about their products. Within three days, a customer service representative messaged me back with a thorough answer. I was satisfied with this because it wasn't an urgent question, so I didn't have to wait on hold or get upset they weren't responding right away. It is important to have a large enough team being able to go through their social media answering as many comments and messages as possible because it builds customer trust and satisfaction.

When I have my own business on social media platforms, I, or my team, will definitely respond to negative and positive comments. I feel that every single customer's input on my product/ service matters because it will allow me to create my own focus group and it will make the customer's 'voice' feel heard and taken into consideration. Although, I will not respond to comments that are rude and intrusive to my company because it doesn't affect my business, it is only a comment that can simply be ignored especially if it is not true. Building a connection with my customers through social media is helpful because others will see that comments and messages are being responded to by us, so they will want to ask some too, being confident they will get answered also. This would build engagement with my social media also, which is something every business should pay attention to.