There’s few things that grind my gears more than what you’re going to see below. As an ex-community manager and content producer – seeing these sorts of threads literally makes me want to slap every ^community manager listed below and on the internet everywhere across the face for letting their standards go so low as to use copy and paste support messaging. I can’t. At the end of last week I saw that a girl I follow on Twitter was complaining to @ATT that her experience with their service was terrible… Keep in mind, I’m not even a customer – I’m an innocent bystander, just observing their shitty brand practices.
As I am well aware of the value of my internet influence with 20,000+ followers on Twitter, I am always happy to hop on threads and help get people I know get the attention they deserve for a service they pay for. Not a redundant bot or robot community manager who copy and pastes a pre-ordained support message in lieu of addressing a person with an issue like the person they are.
If you’re new here, then you might not be aware ATT support seems to work from the idea of, “ignore all service messages until one goes viral – THEN deal.”
I have really strong ideas about what a proper, effective and successful “digital strategy” means for brands. ATT is easily one of the worst. My FAVORITE part about the above conversation is that “Mike W” is concerned with MY perception and experience of the brand, not the experience of his actual customer. That is the prime demonstration that they only care about you by how many followers you have or how much noise you can make – they don’t want bad press, but it’s unavoidable when your management strategy is this bad. How do I know these things? This isn’t my first e-run in with ATT.
About a month ago, my friend Dom – who ALSO works on a digital team at Microsoft – texted me asking if I would jump on her personal Twitter conversation with them because they’ll only pay attention and actually address your problem // direct message you // whatever if there’s someone with enough followers or enough people to hop on a thread and make it go viral and need to be addressed by a – *gasp* real person – using more than just their fingers to hit ctrl + c and ctrl + v and move on with their day. Like, oh sorry I couldn’t get your phone’s data sorted for intentional usage – I was busy leveling up in the Kim K game! What can I do to help your experience with ATT? (SHH – don’t report me!! I’ll send you a dress in the game!!!)
You can see the rest of the thread and the mediocre way ATT and Customer Care tried to fix their mistakes and step over their own feet in the process here.
Now, keep in mind I was a communication studies major who wrote her thesis on social media and how it would affect how corporations interact with their public – I used perception management theory as a primary framework (read that here). I would say, ATT, that you can change my perception about your company by changing the way you treat, handle and deal with your valued customers. Mike W, my issue and concern is with your terrible social // management strategy and the bad practices you employ as a function of it. When you fuck with my friends, you fuck with me.
STONECOLDBETCH 
Can I like this?