the(new)mediaslut

It seems like food establishments, small and big, are allergic to complains from their paying customers.

Local blogger Platoz complained about a small Ayam Penyat food stall at NTU and the owner allegedly “demanded” that Platoz stop complaining about his dish.

NTU Ayam Penyet stall owner asked me to stop criticizing him | Monk philosophy on everything under the sun via kwout

Privé, a more high end resturant off Keppel island, also decided to delete a comment from its Facebook community when a customer decided to use it to complain her displeasure at the service of the staff during a birthday dinner celebration.

Some might argue that Privé owns the Facebook group so it is in their prerogative  to delete comments that they don’t feel is right for the group.

That isn’t the point of this post.

Both food establishments have decided that the best way of addressing a complain is to take down the posts.

While they have erased the unhappiness in the short term, the long term damage is done.

Asking a blogger to take down a negative post or erasing a bad Wall comment shows that the establishments would rather sweep the damages under the carpet.

They forget that such actions can be easily propagated  with the Web2.0 tools that themselves hope to use to market their food offerings.

Their actions also creates a perception that they above their customers. In simple words, arrogance.

Would you want to part your money being served by service that is being portrayed as arrogant?

This blogger believes the two complainers are only looking for the two establishments to acknowledge their weakness, apologise for the bad service and improve their offerings.

Not a slammed door in their face.

If you think saying sorry is a sign of weakness, think again.

Imagine if the respond to the both parties was as follows:

We would like to apologise for the bad services experienced during your visit to our food establishment.

We have taken the necessary actions to look at how we can improve our services or food ensure your next experience at our food establishment on your next visit.

Again, please accept our apologies for the incident.

Would you want to visit the food establishment again?

This is what happens if you run a company and don’t use any input from Public Relations professionals.

Seriously, had the marketing department or management, where doubtless this poorly crafted idea came from, ran this through the PR department, it would not have gone public since PR guys usually have more common sense since they are thinking about the company’s relationship and reputation with customers.

The litmus test is quite simple: How would YOU feel if someone did that to you, penny pinching their way into your wallet?

Would YOU pay extra to get rid of the crap a computer company put in there in the first place?

I sometimes wonder if the way we do business nowadays, with the constant requirement of annual growth, is the proper way of doing business. Constant growth, with planetary resources not efficiently managed, is just not sustainable.

Never mind that Sony QUICKLY CAVED to customer outrage and canceled the charge, the damage is already done. Plus, if this happened the first time, Sony could easily say “sorry” and people would forget. But many still remember the CD rootkit fiasco, the activist surveillance issue and of course, the worldwide battery recalls. Don’t believe me? Check out Sony’s Wiki page and all the links to its sources and judge for yourself.

The old way of doing business is dead.

Now, corporations have a bigger responsibility to their customers, partners, suppliers, communities and environment, not just increasing shareholder value at any cost. And that means listening to some common sense.

You may heard the term from print to screen where books are turned into movies and it seems journalists from Singapore’s mainstream media are looking at social media for their source of the story.

It is, therefore, even more important for the brand protectors, like the PR and the corporate comms, to constantly be aware of the going ons of the social media scene.

It all started with postings on two SPH forums at omy.sg and asiaone.com about how the forum member won her case against Nokia to refund her the full amount of a Nokia phone which she bought stopped working after a few days.

Unable to get the mobile phone repair, the forum member asked for a refund and got it through Singapore’s Small Claims Tribunal.

However, when the forum member called Nokia to check on the refund, Nokia office replied they did not receive any notice from the Small Claims Tribunal.

So what did the forum member do?

She got the courts to call in the Repo Man.

Wrote XiaoYun at OMY.sg on Feb 18 2008,

I then applied for WSS (Writ of Seizure and Sale) the next day. An appointment date was scheduled on 11 Feb 2008.

I accompany the bailiff officer to Nokia HQ. Nokia was then given two options by the bailiff officer. One was to make settlement and the other one was let the bailiff officer to sticker their movable assets.

They finally woke up and agree to make payment. By then, they got to pay $1,018.43 instead of $778.

The forum post ended in Singapore’s popular blog aggregation site, Tomorrow.sg on Feb 22, 2008.

The Straits Times posted a teaser on its online site today to highlight that the Nokia incident will hit the pages of the print papers on Feb 25, 2008, with the headline “Nokia forced to cough up more than $1,000 over faulty phone“.

Wrote Alfred Siew of The Straits Times,

EARLIER this month, Ms Tan Geok Hoon marched into Nokia’s office, brandishing court documents and threatening to seize the assests of the cell-phone giant.

A bailiff stood at the side of the 43-year-old sales manager, ready to reposess the company’s things.

Ms Tan was enforcing a small claims court decision that ordered the world’s largest cellphone maker to pay her $778 for a faulty cellphone she bought last year.

The moment, which Ms Tan recalled recently, marked the culmination of a seven- month David-versus-Goliath battle.

The story of one woman’s fight against a mighty firm made its rounds in several online forums last week, casting the spotlight on how the world’s top phone maker handled unhappy customers.

This shows that the mainstream media are reading forums and blogs for a story source and I believed this isn’t the first time that it has happened.

However, I went through Nokia.com.sg Press Center and failed to find any official respond to the incident.

Neither could I find any Nokia response in the forums.

The question here for Nokia is that while the company promotes its mobile phones as a blogging tool, what type of respond mechanism does the company have when it comes to addressing the social media scene?

Or do they wait for it to be blown up in the mainstream media before they respond to them?

I had to take the taxi yesterday because I was carry a large luggage to the bus terminal for my weekend trip to Kuala Lumpur.

It was one of those rare trips that I boarded a taxi where the driver managed to strike a conversation with me.

In a mix of Mandarin and Hokkien, we conversed about the recent debate about the amount a taxi driver’s daily earnings of SGD318 as announced by Raymond Lim, Minister of State for Transport, in a recent Parliament sitting.

The Today newspaper ran a story how netizens of an Internet forum calculated that the daily takings would total SGD9858 a month.

(Though the Singapore papers are reluctant to give credit to bloggers, Jean of the Simply Jean blog should be credited for her calculations of the monthly earnings.)

I highlighted that paper also clarified that ComfortDelgro corrected its statement and said the SGD318 earned were calculated based on two shifts.

Upon hearing the monthly earnings and ComfortDelgro, the taxi driver roared with uncontrollable laughter and I almost became an accident statistic if the driver didn’t gather composure quickly.

The taxi driver then highlighted that because the new taxi fares have created an over supply of taxi drivers during the peak hours and lower demand, some taxi drivers have taken to make use of the peak hours as a rest period.

The new peak hour surcharges meant taxi drivers get to earn an extra 30% on top of a fixed surcharge.

He highlighted that passengers arn’t stupid. Many has adjusted their timings to take taxi before or after the peak period, thus saving on the extra surcharges.

On the bus to Kuala Lumpur, this conversation got me thinking about Comfort Delgro and how they got into the mess.

Wrote The Straits Times on Jan 22, 2008,

While some cabbies have complained that passengers are not flagging taxis, Mr Lim said their earnings have however gone up.

Based on figures provided by ComfortDelGro, Singapore’s biggest taxi operator, cabbies are pocketing about $11 more a day, earning about $318.

Mr Lim was responding to questions from MP for Tampines GRC Ms Irene Ng and MP for Tanjong Pagar GRC Mr Baey Yam Keng in Parliament.

Technically, a day is made up two shifts, so earnings of SGD318 was correct.

But the statement given by Mr Raymond Lim made it sound as if one taxi driver earned SGD318 per day.

Unless ComfortDelgro has started to hire Cylons as taxi drivers (which maybe something they have not announced), then it would be possible for a taxi drivers to drive two shifts a day for 365 days a year.

Maybe there was a request by the Land Transport Authority to ComfortDelgro for some figures.

An overzealous member of ComfortDelgro might have taken the figures and then passed it to the authorities without thinking of the consequences of the wordings.

Based on this incident, it would be very difficult for readers to believe whatever figures that ComfortDelgro provides to the media or the authorities.

The best way to do it now is via an external auditor to provide figures from this taxi operator.

Another authority that will be caught playing the number games will most likely by IDA in April 2008 when the number of Internet users in Singapore will drop by a cool 1 million users. Then again, the fault has been pointed at Singtel for providing such figures to the authorities.

The Monday morning of Jan 21, 2008, must have been one hell of a morning for those staying between Pasir Ris and Tanah Merah as the SMRT train service between these stations of the same name was halted because of a “track fault”.

Through the service disruption, zm the studious blogger questioned SMRT’s corporate communications procedures when it came to crisis management.

(pictures gathered from Hardwarezone)
Wrote zm,

non-transparency on cause of service disruption. On the screens at the MRT station, i only knew there was a DISRUPTION from PSR to TNM. What’s the fault? Why is SMRT always so shy to tell commuters of the actual problem?

Is it important to tell commuters the reason for the disruption?

Yes. It isn’t because the commuters are a bunch of busy people, but a reason would have provided them the necessary information to make decisions on whether to wait for disruption or look at alternative transportation.

Did somebody committed suicide again by jumping onto the train tracks? Did a train run off a track? If commuters knew that this was a problem, they would know it would take awhile for train service to resume so it would be better to look for alternatives.

I believe SMRT engages in many emergency drills to prepare the staff for, well, emergency, but are their corporate comms department also tested during these drills?

During such emergencies or crisis, the corporate communications shouldn’t be just preparing a speech for a spokesperson, but they should look at how to disseminate such disruption to the public.

There a few ways to do. The fastest way is to deploy a team at the affected stations to inform incoming commuters that there is a train disruption and it might take awhile for regular service to resume.

According to some reports, there were only signs that say train service is disrupted.

During such crisis, commuters want to speak to humans to understand the situation, not robots or machines!

The next step is to send out a note to radio stations to make an announcement that train services are disrupted between station A and B.

Putting your crisis management procedures in a drill will also highlight some of the holes that needs plugging.

Be honest and upfront in a crisis. Don’t shy away from the problem as it will be made as if you have something to hide. which then ends up in speculation and rumour mongering about the cause of the crisis.