Thanks for your comment. I think we are in perfect agreement. My apologies if I was not clear: using public (social) channels for support is not blackmail. The example I was referring to was about an influential person threatening to use his social influcence unless his demands are met. This person demanded special treatment because he has 10,000+ followers. That is the behavior that is, IMHO, not very ethical.

Thanks for a thoughtful post.

Although I agree that customers who ask publicly for change and transparency through social should be more polite, I don’t think that asking a company to respond publicly is blackmail (even when people are obnoxious about it.)

Customers are simply responding to a company in the medium where they’d most like to be recognized. As you state, social is a channel, and the key things that I think companies need to do with it include:

1) acknowledging the request;
2) trying to provide a reasonable response that is proportionate to the problem;
3) and where inconsistencies exist between channels, strive to bring that same immediacy and quality of service offline that some of your teams are providing online.

Here’s a slightly extended version of these views on connecting with customers and providing a great experience: http://slidesha.re/hD6do6.

I’d love to hear more of your thoughts and appreciate the post.

Regards,

Greg