It’s like when you get a snag in your pantyhose, if you don’t do something about it right then before someone notices it, it’s just going to get bigger and bigger and turn into a big ugly mess that everyone will notice.

In PR the most important things to remember are to be proactive and when something negative does inevitably happen.. Act Quickly to Resolve it.

Blogging will allow for customers to voice their opinions more easily, (both complains and praises.) So, if there is a problem with a product or service immediately fix it. .. And if there is a crazy nut that is slandering the organization immediately take care of that.

I also think that it’s important to remember that people want to know that their opinion matters and that someone it listening. I think that as long as the organization is operating to the highest degree of satisfaction that regularly interacting with the organization’s publics can only postively affect and improve it.

I huge step for McDonalds would be for them to create a blog, which I know is risky but it would have to be heavily monitored. The blog would allow customers to comment and tell their complaints or praises about the company. Any inappropriate comments would not be allowed to post but the blog manager would send a massage in respond to the send and try to make amends.

McDonalds also needs to become more aware of their customers wants and needs. They may have a million customers but over time that could diminish if they do not have happy customers. They could talk to their customers on site or though surveys. They have such a broad range of customers. Then they need to get a feel of each demographic and what would make each of them feel an important part of the McDonalds family.

After they learn more about their customers then they need to take action. In doing this they will have a lot fewer unhappy customers and a lot more happy ones

I was not able to hear Jami’s analysis of McDonald’s publics but I would assume that there are quite a few to count. I think that it is important if they desire good relations with their multiple publics that they would try to reach all of them in some way. They might not be targeting certain publics at the same time, but they should have a plan to reach all at some point. I think a blog would be essential to this purpose and to the purpose of communicating with their customers. I definitely think any blog should be monitored too.

I think it would be a good idea if McDonalds evaluated what is important to their customers and how important is it to the people behind McDonald’s that these customers are not satisfied. I agree that giving away free ideas will not help this situation. The customer will continue to feel the way they do and nothing else will be done further to satisfy the customer either. I see it everyday when I am serving at Applebees, giving away free stuff only leads some customers to want to complain every time they go somewhere to eat because they think they deserve free food. Now, in this case there are many different reasons why a customer would get free food because I’m not saying one if more sufficient than the other but it is just the fact that some people feel they are owed something free. I think the situation depends entirely on what the product or service is and how substantial and important is it that this customer is going to be happy in the end.

I believe every company should monitor corporate and personal blogs. Companies should regard such blogs as vital customer feedback. If the company finds a complaint sufficient enough to respond, they should definitely follow up. How should they gauge what complaints are sufficient enough to respond to is another situation in itself. I believe the companies should respond if they believe the statement or complaint about their product could possibly harm their business. If in not responding, the company would lose only one customer rather than respoding and losing hundreds or the problem could disappear entirely, they should stay quite.

This is an extremely difficult situation and there is not a set guideline to avoiding it, however, it is something very important that every company must consider.

Bloggers like Jeff Jarvis can be so dangerous because of their capacity to “rally the troops.� Suddenly, everyone who has had a problem with the corporation in the past will alliance and start to cause problems for the company. In Dell’s case, I too had been experiencing problems with Dell’s customer service around the same time that Jeff Jarvis wrote his blog. This enraged me further and I am still not sure if I will ever buy a Dell computer again. For this reason, I think that it is important for companies to have a person dedicated to searching internet sites for public opinion. People are blogging at every hour of the day, and the companies need to know what people are saying about them.

No, I do not think it is necessary to reply to every single negative post written about your company. However, when a central complaint (like customer service) is circulating around blog sites, your company needs to take action. Although blogs may pose as a threat to companies, they are truly a great way of measuring your relations with your publics.

I do agree thought that eventually this will catch up with McDonalds. If they continue to be selective of the audience they choose to target, people will start to notice. Instead of billions of hamburgers sold, it will be billions of people ignored. It is important for companies to treat customers individually.

Leigh Ann quoted Dale Wolf well. He said, “We need to see customers as people with real needs and interests that will, ultimately, lead to a stronger relationship. Listen and respond.� Executives should embrace the chance to interact with a passionate consumer, rather than ignore it. Consumers know that someone is checking out the blog and actively not responding and it makes it even worse. This should be a chance for a giant company to show that it cares about the customer and wants to respond to opinions and wants rather than pretending not to notice.

McDonalds could use a blog like other corporations to actively solve problems and voice what it is doing about it. Blogging can be used to reach out to the consumer and show that if there is a problem McDonalds will show that it has the ability to care, not just to give out a coupon for a free hamburger.

I have to agree with Jami when she says, “As for not responding to McChronicles, McDonald’s needs to understand that they are only hurting their other campaigns by choosing to ignore this particular one. No one can afford to be selective about their audience. Even if they can afford it, they won’t benefit from it.” This is so true, and if McDonald’s doesn’t realize this, I believe they will, at some point, begin to suffer.

It is important for huge companies to realize that each customer still expects some sort of respect. In fact, the more well known a company is, the more expectations people are going to have. That’s a key elemenet to what makes a company so successful.

Engage in dialog
I agree with Erin M.’s plan for how McDonald’s needs to handle the blogging situation, and I think that idea can apply to most companies. It’s important to open things up for discussion — both to get valuable feedback AND to show that the company is actively committed to communicating with customers and improving its service/products. Freebies solve nothing and seem like a trivial “quick fix” to me. I feel like every time I turn around I’m saying or thinking this, but honest, respectful, sincere and gracious communication is key when dealing with the blogesphere.

Follow Through
Of course, all that good communicating doesn’t do a bit of good if the company doesn’t follow through. Customers aren’t stupid and they’ll catch on pretty darn fast if a company is making a superficial blogging effort. There are two things customers hate worse than bad service: companies pretending they’re doing something about their bad service and/or companies pretending their bad service is wonderful. With the Dell Hell case, for example, a company cannot claim to be known for its outstanding customer service, produce a crappy product, and then follow that with equally crappy service. Not only does that not cut it — that infuriates the customer! Rightly so.

The moral of the story: engage in dialog with customers. There’s a lot that can be learned from that. BUT never, in the blogesphere or elsewhere, make claims or statements and refuse to follow through.

Blogs could be a good way of keeping McDonalds and other companies up-to-date on how customers are feeling and what their concerns are. The main concern is how the company will handle the blogs. It really is aggravating when you have an issue with a company and they ignore you. It is even more frustrating when they acknowledge you, but treat you as if you don’t matter or they don’t have time for you. Understanding customer service and treating people equally, rather than as a simple customer with an issue, is important.

Dale Wolf has a great post on customers and how your actions as a company speak louder than words. He said, “We need to see customers as people with real needs and interests that will, ultimately, lead to a stronger relationship. Listen and respond.” Dale also said that execs see customers as numbers on a spreadsheet. If this is the case, then companies like McDonald’s need to put more effort into making the customer happy.

I think the deciding factor about whether the customer is actually satisfied with the reply is sincerity. Lacking sincerity does nothing but fuel an already peeved customer’s fire. With out this, a company’s reply is useless.

When the person, who is supposed to be helping you, sounds like they are reading from a script, or giving you the brush off, there is nothing more aggravating. There is no service in that version of customer service. Nobody who has spent their time and money into buying a product wants the company to turn around only to treat you like you don’t matter. I think replying to these posts would be treating the customer like an actual human being instead of a buying machine.

On the other hand I don’t believe that all posts have to be answered either. Too much time and money would be spent doing that. You can’t make everyone happy and some people will never be satisfied. But knowing that a company made even a little effort to show they care about the happiness of the consumer goes along way.