One of the gifts of social media to brands is the ability to create an identity for themselves through digital platforms. This enables them to not only promote themselves amongst their target audience, but also engage and connect with their users. The results are quantifiable, and the feedback is instant and personalized.
However, like every good thing, having a social media presence is a double edged sword. While in an ideal world, all you want to do is post great content and expect to be universally appreciated and loved, this is not to be.
Customers will find a way to pour out their grievances on your posts and bombard you with choicest of accusations. These often have nothing to do with the post in question, and make for some rather unsavoury comment threads on an attempted cool post.
We trawled the social media activity of some of the most active brands on social media, and picked up the choicest of examples of times when customers had no chill, and used a brand’s well-meaning campaigns as a customer complaint redressal forum.
1. When RedBus’ Pongal celebrations were interrupted by an unhappy user.
2. When Alan Rickman’s death reminded this user of his cash back points.
3. When all Zomato wanted people to do was follow it on Instagram.
4. When Ola while saluting our soldiers for their sacrifice and bravery on Army day had to be brave about angry customers instead.
5. When this user decided to match each of Quikr’s Ranvir promotion with his complaints.
6. When Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma rocking a company party was too much for this accusatory customer to take.
7. When this customer clearly didn’t think Grofers “Gets it”.
8. When Uber probably identified the best use case for needing some puppy love this user whose account was suspended.
9. When Oyo rooms celebrating a landmark was the most opportune moment for this user to highlight the hole in the bedsheets at an Oyo room.
10. When Punit Soni, didn’t think his motivational tweet about building businesses would backfire for employer Flipkart.
11. When Flipkart may have done some great activities to delight its employees, but its customers were not quite as pleased with the company.
