Hi all, Claire here

Last month Kate blogged about a great example of customer service where GE monitored their social media and used a customer comment on Twitter as an opportunity for excellent customer service and positive PR.

Well here is an wonderful example of what happens when an organisation doesn’t listen! Folk singer, Dave Carroll, continuously complained to United Airlines after they damaged his $3,500 guitar. They didn’t want to know. Dave then produced this …

The video received half a million views in 3 days and is now on just under ten million views! The spread of the video alerted other unhappy customers and United Airlines found themselves facing the power of thousands of customers who had similar complaints … another example of how the power of social media cannot be underestimated!

It could be said that this power is even stronger for smaller local businesses. We describe social media as the modern version of word of mouth – fantastic for recommendations but lethal if someone wants to moan about your business. Your reputation is even more important if your customer base is local and word spreads. People might be monitoring local twitter traffic and all it takes is a grumble on twitter and one unhappy customer can turn in to several!

Monitoring online mentions of your business is essential. People are talking about your business and you need to know what is being said. Responding to those mentions is where you really get to benefit from the power of social media.

Keeping track of local tweets is just one trick of the trade, give us a shout to find out more.