Businesses Paying Attention to Their Online Reputations

By NED RANDOLPH
San Diego Business Journal Staff

If there’s a silver lining to the emergence of social media, it’s that individual consumers have a little more leverage against corporate America.

During a recent forum hosted by San Diego’s Red Door Interactive — a creative agency that also manages brands online — a panel of speakers shared just how keenly businesses are paying attention to their online reputations. Several dozen public relations professionals and others attended the forum at DiamondView Tower downtown.

Chances are that whenever a conversation about a company is taking place on Twitter, Facebook or a group of blogs, there’s a marketing ace or executive watching, and possibly intervening.

“Because of the new frontier, you no longer have a wall between the corporate entity and the individuals that support it,” who are the customers, said Crosby Noricks, a social media strategist for Red Door, at the June 30 forum. “It’s something amazing where you can have a conversation with the CEO directly.”

I experienced this firsthand during an unfortunate snafu regarding a plane ticket to Paris purchased on CheapTickets.com, an Orbitz Global company in Chicago. I canceled my ticket June 26 and attempted to use the credit toward another ticket through the CheapTickets Web site. The credit was never applied, and I was charged a sizable amount of money for the second ticket.

I got nowhere on an online customer service “chat” at CheapTickets.com.

Later, I e-mailed several executives at Orbitz Global voicing my discontent, posted the mail on my sparsely followed blog and sent out a message on Twitter. Within two hours, the customer service director of CheapTickets.com in Chicago e-mailed me, offering to come to a fair resolution.

“We’re sensitive to what people print about us in Twitter and blogs,” Customer Service Director Steve Sedlak said by phone July 8. “We can’t always solve (the problem), but sometimes I think we get some home runs and mistakes taken care of. We are paying attention.”

But commentary aside, social media is an empowering tool, if only for the ability to rise above the chafe of noise to reach the executive suite.

When businesses are spending untold amounts of money on social media marketing stunts to create positive conversations about their brand, imagine the power that irate customers having legitimate conversations online have. It’s the old power of 10 rule where one person tells 10 friends. With social media, one person can tell hundreds, if not thousands, of friends.

“Someone is 78 percent more likely to follow the recommendation from someone they know,” said Jamie Dicken, executive vice president of sales with the marketing strategy firm Brickfish.com, at the Red Door forum.

Added Natalie Davis, director of e-commerce at Petco Animal Supplies: “People are talking about your brand whether you want them to or not. You want to be the one to start the conversation about your business.”