Week 2 Part A: Business & Consumers: Communication and Reviews

In the past, communicating with businesses usually consisted of either calling or sending an email, both of which could result in long wait times before receiving a response. However, now there are many more avenues of communication with companies through different social media platforms, their own webpages, live chat, etc. and response times are usually much quicker. Through social media specifically, you can usually chat with someone live instantly via messages, you could tag the company directly in a comment or your own post or story or respond to any of their content.

I read reviews on almost everything I purchase if its a new purchase, specially if its something for my kids like toys, slime, clothes, etc.  For myself, beauty items are the reviews I'm usually reading.  I also specifically seek out review videos on cosmetics/hair items since it really helps to actually see the products being used. I really appreciate the length that some people go to review products.  For example, the majority of make-up video reviews consist of filming multiple times a day to show how the products are holding up several hours later and throughout the day.

For this assignment I read reviews on Amazon of many different manufactures of pin pad door locks. The reviews ranged from terrible (1-3 stars) to amazing (5 stars).  Of course, many of the ones with the best reviews were the most expensive ones and the prices ranged from as low as $30 to over $300 so that was a vast difference.  With so many options, I would have had no idea which one to choose if it weren't for the reviews.  Thankfully, I was able to find one with pretty great reviews (4.9 star average) at a really great price deal!

Personally, I'm not one to post negative reviews typically unless its something important like a health/safety issue.  If I receive a defective product, I'll contact the company directly as opposed to leaving a negative public review.  I do leave good reviews when I find a product I like specially if there are not many reviews and/or mixed reviews since I know I really appreciate and base a majority of my purchases off of reviews.

 

If I had my own business on social media, I would respond to comments the way I did when I was in charge of customer service for a supplement company.  The majority of their comments were positive, but of course you can't please everyone so they did get some negative reviews as well.  The positive comments were responded to with sincere gratitude and the negative were responded to apologetically and with solutions (refunds, replacements, promo codes, etc.)