Communication Missteps are a Big Fail

Today, I blocked @AskCiti from my Twitter because I didn’t think listening to me was a productive way for them to spend their time. Here’s the backstory.

Last spring, I accepted the challenge of being a Brownie leader for my daughter’s troop. How hard could it be to school them in leadership, respect and entrepreneurship? All that’s been a piece of cake. Then, we got to the cookies.

According to the WSJ, profits from Girl Scout cookies last year rose from $700 million to $714 million last year, after six years of falling about 1% a year. That’s no small change. Fast forward to Citibank, the bank entrusted with these funds. In two branches in New York City, where Girl Scouts is headquartered, tellers couldn’t figure out how to deposit our Brownie troop’s funds. The first time, I sent my husband. He came back grumbling about how he needed a store number. And then I tried at different branch. What’s your store number, said the teller. Huh, I’m not a store? No store number. No deposit.

Once I got back to the office, I come to find that the “store number” is the number plainly printed on the lower left of the deposit slip. The account number is on the right. Shouldn’t these huge entities be in sync on collecting funds and know how to read a pre-printed deposit slip? Instead, thousands of dollars sat in my backpack over a weekend.

I was frustrated so I twittered. That Twitter got a direct message from @AskCiti, asking for my phone and the best time to call. A Citibank social media rep was happy to help me. Really? This was the time to call into action the team in charge of the Citibank Girl Scout account. Just because I express myself through Twitter, doesn’t relegate the issue to social media.

Comments

[Joshmccormack]

Marcus & Frank - and Tim, correct me if I'm way off here, the issue is an expression of frustration with a brand on Twitter can be noticed by that brands social media department. They can publicly reply that their tellers made a big mistake. And they can inform someone who manages that account to contact this customer. But the social media dept connecting on Twitter and trying to get a phone # to move the discussion out of public view is damage control. It also highlights a bizarre but prevalent attitude with many brands, that online/digital/social media is different from another venue. If the author had written a letter would the Postal Mail representative contacted them?

[FrankEliason]

Tim,
I apologize for your experience at the Citi branches. We would not want you to have that difficulty, and I am pleased our service team reached out to you to try to correct the trouble. I am SVP of Social Media for Citi and I want to also clarify why they 'followed' you. First let me assure you brands are not using Twitter in the same manner you do. Most brands rely on @ replies or search to follow discussions that are relevant for them. They then respond when appropriate. The reason they follow is to allow you the ability, if you choose to send a direct message. In this case a contact number so they can call and help you out or gather more information about the experience. If you follow back, which would allow them to private message you back, you can always unfollow after such discussion.

Again, thank you for the feedback and I apologize for the original experience. I can also assure you that they take the feedback provided by our Customers, no matter the communications channel, directly to those involved in the process.

Frank Eliason
SVP of Social Media
Citibank

[Marcus Hodges]

I'm a little confused by this post.

Are you suggesting that, by noticing your Twitter post and offering to help, Citi is providing subpar customer service? If so, I can't see why. If anything, this seems like an example of Citi going above and beyond to fix a problem for one of their customers.

Obviously the initial problem was a pain, and understandably so, but there's a disconnect in blaming a company for both having a problem and proactively trying to solve it.

I agree that you should remove them from your feed if you don't want them to try to help when you've received poor customer service, but this part of the issue sounds like your problem, not theirs. While a personal blog is the perfect forum for complaining just for the sake of it, in a commercial job is just seems whiny and unwarranted.