The APC Event

I hadn’t initially planned on blogging about last week’s Atlanta Press Club event, but nothing makes for good blogging like pissed-offedness. The title of the event was “Ethics and New Media: How the Blogosphere is Affecting Journalism and Business.” For purposes of this post, I want to focus on the latter - how the blogosphere is affecting businesses and business practices.

David Rubinger, panelist and VP of Corporate Communications for Equifax, made the point that anyone with a blog could instantly put something out that could harm your business and that businesses don’t like ceding “control” to the masses. “Equifax Sucks” only gets 135 hits on Google, so they must be doing something right. Compare to “Wachovia Sucks” at 73,000 or “Sprint Sucks” at 50,000 hits.

During the summer of ‘04, I spent a great deal of time blogging about how “Compaq Sucks”. Oh sure, I wrote them letters, but you know where that got me? No where! I never got a single response. They must have thought it was normal to have an under three year old laptop sent in for repair five times.

[Insert tirade against WorldPoints and their misleading and bullshit airline points system.]

My point is a lot of businesses, especially large ones, are not receptive to customer service complaints made via phone, email or mail. And I think this is because the public doesn’t see the complaint. Sure, the complainer might tell his or her friends / family. But once it’s on the web, everyone knows about it. Ala Amber’s Plantinum Stages saga. Would anyone consider purchasing from Plantium Stages after following her posts? Likely not.

To those businesses who are worried about blogs: If you assholes provide a good product with good customer service, you don’t have to worry about it!

Sheesh.

Other reactions to the APC: Sara, Shelby and Griftdrift.