How to Turn a Social Media Disaster Into a Social Customer Service Success Story

Remember the last time you did something really stupid?

I DO.

It’s still painful to think about.

I was in my high school history class and this cool guy passed me a note saying something like, “This is really lame,” and I giggled and wrote back, “Yeah, Mr. Smith is such a dweeb.” (Leave me alone – it was the eighties.)

Well, somewhere between the exchange, the note was dropped and forgotten – or so I thought. Two days later, I got my homework back, with a copy of the note attached – and look at that – we had both put our names on it. (Rookie mistake.) I felt sick. I couldn’t look the teacher in the eye after that day.

Well, imagine that kind of humiliation: social media style. One stupid moment of trying to be cool or funny – and BAM! It’s on Twitter and Facebook for all the world to see.

Download: 5 Steps to Superior Social Customer Service to see how to handle social media slip-ups

There have been a lot of social media “fails” over the past few months. Remember the pornographic image that was tweeted around the world? Or the “Adios Amigos” gaffe during the World Cup? Ouch. Those were rough to watch.

And yet, even as we were “re-tweeting” the posts to all of our friends for our general amusement, we couldn’t help but feel REALLY bad for the employees who sent the tweets (I bet they were fired!) – and even more sorry for the company left spending a ton of money picking up the pieces of a mess someone else made.

Airlines are particularly vulnerable to this kind of situation, because they have millions of customers around the world, traveling around the clock – and because they have lots and lots of employees. And even good employees do dumb things sometimes.

With so many people across the globe poised and ready to post the first hilarious bit of content to come their way, one social media fail can become a public relations nightmare in a matter of minutes.

So how can smart companies right such an awful wrong?

Through Transparency.

By being genuine, honest and humble. By accepting responsibility for the mistake, apologizing and making it right. And, most of all, by being human.

We respect and trust companies that don’t try to hide from mistakes. And we enjoy “comeback stories” from companies who inject a bit of humor into the situation. They get it, it was bad, but they managed to turn it into a positive. Somehow, it makes us like them a little bit more.

We’re only human, and we all make mistakes, but how we deal with them is what makes all the difference.

The most important thing is that companies (especially global companies like airlines) monitor their conversations 24/7 on a social customer service platform like Sparkcentral, so they not only catch the mistake – but respond to it immediately in a transparent and very human way.

Download our latest white paper: 5 Steps to Superior Social Customer Service to see how you can turn a social media disaster into a success story.

How to Turn a Social Media Disaster Into a Social Customer Service Success Story