The Customer Bites Back via the Blogosphere

A classic mini case study for anyone teaching customer service. Andy Sharman was more than unhappy with their miserable Thomson Holidays trip to Tunisia - so he turned to blogging when Thomson ignored his complaints…

This piece in the Independent provides a rich seam of material for a classroom discussion on customer service.

It seems that the customer service dept at Thomson Holidays couldn’t realy give a monkeys - until it was pointed out that Mr Sharman’s blog - detailing some pretty disappointing and unpleasant holiday experiences - was showing up towards the top of the Google search results for some key travel search phrases. At that point the damage-limitation team rolled into action. A couple of great quotes from the piece:

“Mr Sharman, 23, from Leicester, said:“I got nowhere with my complaints for a month and a half but when I started beating them on Google, they wanted to talk.” “

“A Thomson spokeswoman said: “Customers can expect to receive an excellent level of service regardless of whether or not they publish a blog.”“

Charlie Osmond has a good piece on his branding website that examines some of the marketing issues raised by this case. It really is a good example of the disruptive nature of social media - changing many of the established rules of dealing with customer complaints.

Tens of thousands of holiday customers will be have been disappointed with their holidays last summer - perhaps more than that! Many will have complained at the destination; others will have followed it up on returning home. Increasingly, though, disgruntled holidaymakers are immediately turning to the online review sites like TripAdvisor, their Facebook or Twitter pages or other online networks to express their feelings.