I visited two big box home improvement stores today. The first had an abundance of friendly and smiling employees eager to help me. The second was sparingly staffed with employees that responded to questions but didn’t go out of their way to say hello or try to help me.

Those of you with penchants for perpetually pestering people with passionate postulates about customer service being entirely about “people” will wonder: why did I go to the second store? If I, as a customer, connected with real people who wanted to meet my needs, why the abandonment?

Because the first store didn’t carry everything I needed. In failing to meet my basic expectation, (that the store would have what I needed) the first store negated all the work they’d put into providing me with a remarkable service experience.

Friendly interaction and willing helpfulness are only useful if you provide what your customer needs at the most basic level.

If your planes don’t take off, your cars don’t run, your food is terrible, or your site has a lot of downtime, social media should be low on your list of priorities.

image: eggs

When Social Media Doesn’t Matter is a post from: Simonds Media