Have they called you, left a message, but no one has returned the call<\/strong>?<\/p>\n Have they filled out one of those annoying customer service tickets at your website, but never received a reply<\/strong>?<\/p>\n Unless you’re regularly searching for “(Your brand) sucks,” as in “Publicity Hound sucks,” via the search engines, or on a site like Twitter, how would you ever know?<\/p>\n I seldom use Twitter to gripe about my consumer problems, but\u00a0during my nightmare with AT&T last week, I couldn’t help myself.<\/p>\n I switched Internet and telephone service from AT&T to Time Warner Cable, and cable service from Direct TV to Time Warner. When I called AT&T to ask a simple but important question about ending my\u00a0service, I was transferred to the wrong department four times.<\/p>\n The fifth agent, who promised to stay with me on the call until I got through to the right person,\u00a0 said she, too,\u00a0was frustrated because no one would answer.\u00a0But by then, I’d been tweeting about the experience, using the hashtag “#attsucks”.\u00a0<\/p>\n Six of my Twitter followers started replying, either complaining about their own experiences with AT&T, or simply commiserating:\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Finally, @ATTJessica, responded:\u00a0<\/p>\n But that time, the fifth agent was so frustrated, she called up the notes in my account and answered my question for me. (Why didn’t she just do that as soon as I was transferred to her?)<\/p>\n Companies ought to be monitoring Twitter, Facebook, discussion boards and consumer websites and trying to help. But more importantly, they can save a lot of wear and tear on their brand if they provide excellent customer service from the outset.<\/p>\n I’ve been a new Time Warner customer for less than a week and already love their service.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0 What nasty things are people saying about you online, even if they haven’t done business with you? Has somebody tried to buy a product at your website, but a glitch in your shopping cart wouldn’t put through the order? Have they called you, left a message, but no one has returned the call? Have they\u2026 Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","iawp_total_views":2,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[683],"tags":[168],"class_list":{"0":"post-8259","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-twitter","7":"tag-crisis-communications","8":"entry"},"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Joan Stewart","author_link":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/author\/jstewart\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8259","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8259"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8259\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8259"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8259"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8259"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Publicity](\"https:\/\/www.publicityhound.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/attsucks.jpg\" "\\"attsucks\\"")
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What companies have you dealt with that have provided such horrendous customer service that you’ve shared your bad experiences online? Did they find your complaints and respond? Did you stop doing business with them and switch to a competitor?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"