• Ad Age, Monday, June 21, 2010 10:28 AM

Are you, Ms. or Mr. Major Marketer, teaching your customers to whine? That's the question Michael Bush poses this morning after surveying the social networking scene and wondering whether it's such a good idea to respond so rapidly to complaints posted to, say, Twitter, while giving the voice-jail run-around to just plain folk who call your customer service number.

"The consumer sees two completely different faces and, ultimately that kills credibility, erodes equity and more," says Pete Blackshaw, exec vp of Nielsen Online Digital Strategic Services. "Marketers are setting sky-high expectations with consumers about listening, engagement, and the value of feedback ... while the operations folks who staff call centers or manage internal CRM systems are begging for scraps."

But Jenni Moyer, Comcast's senior director-corporate communications, says that that customers who complain online aren't likely pick up the phone in the first place. And Virgin America's vp marketing, Porter Gale, says her company has the same protocol for grousing, online or off -- "meaning that if you have a real customer-service issue, our social-media team is direct messaging the customer and then connecting them through our normal guest-service channels."

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