UPDATE: Facebook Fail: Nonexistent Customer Service (via 140+: In the Moment)
New update to my post, Facebook Fail: Nonexistent Customer Service about being unable to resolve a payment issue that caused Facebook to disable my account.
I know will be accused of exaggerating, but I promise that I have tried to contact Facebook more than 30 times to arrange for payment to for a mistake I made! Really! I’ve used their online forms and the specified email addresses, only to be met with a 5 of my emails to every 1 canned responses from Facebook. The responses do not respond to or correspond with the text of my email, and if I am lucky enough to get a response, it arrives with a 3-5 day delay.
At this point, it is just too funny to be frustrating! It’s one big cycle that demonstrates complete disregard for customers.As a marketing geek with considerable experience in SaaS management, including customer service, I am intrigued by just how low the Customer Service at Facebook can go. When you compare the historically horrible customer service offered by Dell, Microsoft, Verizon, and Comcast, and they come out looking like customer service heroes next to Facebook, you know there is a problem.
I wonder if the playground posse at Facebook even has a Customer Relationship Management System (CRM). I appears that my cases are brand-new each time I write. Do the FB kids know about CRM? Or are they too busy thinking of the next great way to socialize our universe to worry about such mundane and 20th century concepts as customer service?
Facebook Fail: Nonexistent Customer Service
Poor Facebook. The company has its hands full. With relentless Congressional pressure to stop abusing our trust and peddling our privacy, the “leadership” at Facebook probably doesn’t have time to think about providing customer service to paying customers. The Facebook kids are so busy planning to build a totally social universe where it is at the center, they can’t be bothered to provide even passable customer service to those of us who pay for ads. As a matter of fact, Facebook expects us (the peeps with the money to spend on advertising) to adapt the their vision of customer service, which is totally online and delivered with an attitude. The message I’ve gotten any time I’ve tried to get customer service from Facebook is: “we may get to your problem when we can, and if you are worthy, otherwise, read our rules and responsibilities. You are on your own.”
I could fill you in on my tales of woe trying to rectify an overcharge with Facebook, but I won’t bore you with the details. Just rest assured that this social media consultant wants to pay for what she purchased, not overcharges, and she followed every step of the process as outlined by Facebook…MORE THAN 30 TIMES, and still can’t get resolution. Big, bad, bully FB disabled my account, and basically the company is now completely ignoring my requests to restore my access. I wonder if it is coincidence that I have Tweeted and posted on LinkedIn about Facebook arrogance and inconsistent product development prior to ever requesting customer service. Or maybe my account has not been restored because I had the audacity to try to get someone at Facebook’s attention in the light of day on Twitter.
Oddly, it never occurred to me that the account might have been deactivated because I have made negative comments until I read “Facebook we have a problem,” by Robert Scoble, a blog post that highlights the trials and tribulations vocal users have experienced with Facebook. It’s fascinating to read the comments by readers who have been abused by Facebook, but the most compelling reading of all are the responses from Facebook leadership, including Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself. The arrogance and lack of interest in basic tenants of customer service seep through in every syllable of the responses. Even though Scoble maintains a close relationship with the “in” posse at Facebook, in a follow-up post he agrees that the kids at Facebook have a lot to learn about business, trust, customer service, and long-range strategy planning. Check it out at “Our trust relationship with Facebook: complicated.”
But, I digress. The real issue is Facebook’s hypocrisy about playing by the rules of engagement in social media, the arrogance they display with their insistence that customer service can only be offered through email and online forms, and the lessons they will eventually be forced to learn about customer service. Right now, Facebook is on top, and somehow paying customers are suffering through the customer service void because Facebook offers very effective targeted advertising, and everybody who has something to sell wants the service. But there’s going to be a bottom. There will come a time when the people with the money choose to spend it elsewhere where they have at least minimal customer service.
So the big question is how long can Facebook continue to ignore paying customers, fail to provide customer service, and use the service like a playground on which the company defies all the rules (from development to privacy to customer service) and bullies everyone who wants to play?
140+: In the Moment 