Westworld, do you have reputation management in place?

In a second, an unhappy customer can send out a Tweet expressing how dissatisfied they are.

They may never call you or let you know…but they will share it with the world.

I pulled this tweet from Twitter, obviously it was from a very unhappy customer of WestWorld Computers.  I am writing about this not to spread the displeasure of this person on one of Western Canada’s top Apple dealers but to stress how important it is that you have an effective social media strategy.  A strategy which in includes the most often overlooked and critically important part of all social media – your reputation management.

Remember back a couple of weeks ago when I blogged about the impressive response of Dominos Pizza to an unhappy customer of theirs…here is the tweet I pulled off of my Twitter feed today about my friends at WestWorld.

Here is the tweet in question.

mac “expert” from westworld #yyc came in monday to set up simple mac os server (just DNS w/backup) and left us high and dry today. nice.

From the tweet, it is difficult to judge if the issues were a result of someone just having a bad day or actually a legitimate complaint against this Apple reseller.   For me personally, I have always been super satisfied with the services from WestWorld.  However we all have bad days and sometimes the technical team can simply miss something.  The fact is no matter how great of a job you do or if you customer was someone who was difficult to deal with.  Without knowing all the details who are we to judge.  The tweet about the service from this Apple dealer in the matter of seconds, hit thousands of potential clients and casual Twitter users with the hash tag #yyc accompanying it.  The ball is now in the court of WestWorld to do something, just like our friend from Dominos in Chicago.

Do you know what ‘s happening online about you and your business?
Do you have any idea?

I wonder how WestWorld will respond to this tweet?

Businesses today must have an effective social media reputation management system in place.  It doesn’t matter how big or how small your business is, this is a must and even more critical if your business deals with retail customers, actually you know what…people in general.  I can not stress again how important it is that you watch everyday about what’s happening and shared online about your business. It just takes one unhappy client to write a blog post about your business, throw out a tweet about their experience on your lack or exceptional quality service work, or even worse post something on your website’s Sidewiki.

If there is one important learning I have had over the 15 or so years I have been in business is this.  No matter how hard you try, no matter how long you work, no matter how many things you do correctly…it just takes one screw up and you have an unhappy customer if you fail to follow-up, check in or do something to make sure everything’s done to a higher than satisfactory level.  It comes down to creating a WOW.  When you fail to follow-up, if you are slow to get your quotes done or if you drop the ball ever so slighly…well, it has the potential to become public knowledge over Facebook, Twitter, Blogs and even the lineup at the grocery store or your gym.

How would you respond if you came across this sort of tweet about your business?

(Full Disclosure – I have shared this concern with my colleague at WestWorld to make sure they can take care of this challenge)