Dominick’s Drama – Why Silence Isn’t Golden When it Comes to Facebook
I always enjoy seeing different ways companies are using social media. One important way is to handle customer service issues. More and more customers are using social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, to communicate with businesses, whether it be compliments, complaints, or suggestions.
It looks like Dominick’s may have gotten itself into a bit of a situation with their Facebook page. I’ve been following this for a couple of weeks now, as a friend brought it to my attention. From what I can garner from reading their wall, Dominick’s revised its coupon policy, but may not have communicated it properly to its staff and customers. Customers, especially those who are coupon savvy, found out the hard way at some locations – one day, they just weren’t allowed to use expired coupons.
Right before this, however, it looks like another issue came into play. They offer a “Just 4 U” program that allows customers to receive deals on products they frequently purchase. It seems as though there may have been some miscommunication about this program, and customers were not happy with it.
With these two issues hot on the wall, it led other customers to take it a step further and complain about the service they’ve received, which wasn’t always good. The perfect storm ensued, and what was left was a lot of negative conversation from all angles of the business.
Watching the Facebook page and how Dominick’s has been dealing with this has been quite interesting. They were quiet for a while, and then started responding to unhappy customers. However, the responses were all quite similar, which caused fans to insinuate that the company was providing “canned” responses and didn’t really take these issues to heart. From a business side of it, I’d have to say Dominick’s was trying – there are only so many ways someone can say “we hear you, we’re working on it.”
From there, they got into a bit of a pickle when they backtracked slightly with the coupon issue and stated that it was never their policy to take expired coupons and referenced the coupon policy on their website. However, customers were quick to point out that the only real reference to this in their policy stated that they accepted only coupons “with an expiration date” – not a current expiration date, but just that they had an expiration date.
The complaints continued, and Dominick’s tried to assure people they were looking into it.
Then came the silence.
They’ve been quiet for almost a week now; people are still complaining, but they’re not responding. There are many reasons that could be causing the silence – maybe they are meeting behind closed doors to come up with a solution to this PR situation that will make everyone happy. It could be that they’ve given up and believe that there’s not much more they can say at this point, and are hoping the fire will die out soon.
This is one case in which silence is not golden. I’m sure corporate is frustrated and feels that no matter what they say at this point, it will make matters worse. However, the situation took another turn when customers were seeing all of this negative feedback, and people were chiming in on the fact that expired items were found. Since Dominicks wasn’t addressing this on Facebook, people took matters into their own hands; a popular Chicago blogger went into one of the locations to see how many expired products she could find, and the result was staggering – almost 400 products were found within a few hours. Again, this was shared on Facebook and Dominick’s remained silent.
Since they weren’t being addressed on Facebook and their dissatisfaction was growing, they took it to the news channels, and this story of expired food products was exposed on the Chicago news channels and the Chicago Tribune last night.
Aside from this story taking a life of its own, there are other reasons why it is so important for them to come up with a solution and response sooner rather than later, from a social media and business standpoint:
- Regarding the coupon policy, it seems that it was not necessarily common knowledge that Dominick’s took expired coupons. A good majority of people wouldn’t even consider using an expired coupon. However, to the couponers out there, you know what a valuable asset this is. Even if it was a small group that was unhappy, they are creating a lot of negative feedback, which will only spread online. If someone happens across this topic online and find the Facebook page, they will also learn about customer dissatisfaction surrounding customer service, Just 4 U program, and now the expired food issue, which could dissuade potential customers from stepping foot in a Dominick’s.
- Let’s face it, news spreads online like wildfire! It just so happens that a popular coupon blogger has been involved in this discussion and has blogged quite a bit about it. Her blog has a very strong readership, so news is traveling quickly online.
- Because Dominick’s chose to be silent online, the story took to the news – the issue of expired food has now gotten in front of many more people than those on Dominick’s Facebook page. Had they addressed the earlier issues of expired coupons, for example, it might not have escalated to this point.
- Finally, creating a response and updated policy, if needed, will only help the company. This revision was apparently made without prior warning, which is one of the reasons it upset regular customers. Additionally, it’s not a policy across all locations – some locations (or even some cashiers within a location) are all giving different information to different customers, as reported on Facebook. Getting this type of feedback is valuable, because it can help guide Dominick’s in creating a clear, definitive policy and then clearly communicate that with staff and customers.
It will be interesting to see how this situation progresses. Dominick’s has issued a statement regarding the expired food in its response to the news station; addressing all of the recent PR issues and coming out of this situation successfully will be a long road for the company.
Further validates my thoughts that before an organization embarks on a social media platform, they need to establish rules of engagement complete with identifying resources to management, otherwise they end up taking their eye off the ball.
Definitely Jim! One of the other aspects that is often not considered until they are in the midst of it is having a crisis management plan for social media should something go awry, as in this case.
I go to a Dominick’s all the time and do not have this issue. I just don’t think it is right to throw all the Dominick’s store in one lump. I heard it was a Schaumburg store and I won’t go there. It is not a well kept store.
I agree Julee – it is most likely not all of the locations, and certainly not to the extent that it sounds like according to what I’ve read online. I just wonder if Dominick’s would have gotten to the point of having this on the news had they addressed the initial concerns on Facebook a week and a half ago. Jay Baer wrote a great piece along these lines – you can read it here – how silence can be detrimental when it comes to social media, and how peers can influence others. It looks like things escalated quickly once they fell silent, and the issues escalated far beyond expired coupons.
It will be interesting to see how this develops, that’s for sure! I hope Dominick’s can come out of this okay in the end.
If you read the comments on Dominick’s Facebook page over the last several weeks, it appears (at least to me) that the fires of discontent were stoked, at least in part, by shills from other grocers. From my perspective—both as a communications pro and as someone who grew up working in the highly competitive retail food industry—it’s a little suspicious when a lot of comments offer a complaint against Dominick’s and then in the next breath mention how absolutely wonderful a specific competitor is. Hmmm… That would be a good topic for this blog to explore. How does a company detect such shills and how do you deal wth them?
Hi Tim! That is a great suggestion and one that would definitely be interesting to explore!
In reading the Facebook comments, some of the references to the other grocer (at least from my perspective) related to ending the expired coupon policy….the other grocer gave customers notice before they changed the policy, while (from what we can tell by reading) Dominick’s just stopped it one day. That seems to be the trigger that started this snowball. While the group that was unhappy with the expired coupon policy was likely fairly small in comparison to their overall consumer base, the negativity led to other negativity around other issues and became much larger than it needed to, at least in my opinion.
There is one participant over there that seems to be stoking the fires just to make noise, and he/she did admit to being a former employee. Hopefully readers will realize his/her possible motivation in posting and take those comments with a grain of salt.
It looks like Dominick’s has taken some action and started addressing some of these concerns on their Facebook page, and set some filters so people who are first coming to the site are not seeing the comments from the last couple of weeks. It is very interesting to watch from a social media standpoint, that’s for sure!
Thank you for your comments, and I look forward to exploring the topic of competition in social media!
It still boggles my mind when I see how little the corporate world has full grasped the concept of using social to engage with customers. Few, if any, take the time to respond to questions and comments posted by their clients. They are missing the point entirely,
I liken it to the CEO of a restaurant chain dropping by a location and announcing his presence to the diners. Folks are thrilled to see him and start asking questions such as “when will you be bringing back this popular menu item?” and “can I use my refillable mug when ordering a coffee?” because how often does anyone get a direct line of communication with the boss of a company, right? But the CEO just stands there, smiling away, not looking at anyone in particular, until he suddenly announces “Bring a friend next week and get one meal free!”. The diners look around at each other, a bit confused, and begin to ask other questions. Again, the CEO ignores them but promptly shouts out “check out our specials next month!”. The reaction of the crowd is rather predictable – everyone feels ignored and is rightly annoyed. Why? The CEO’s behaviour is just rude. When you build a sandbox and invite everyone in, you have to actually play with them. This is THE key component to social and one which virtually everyone misses. They still see social as a merely a free advertising platform.
Your Dominick’s story could not have made a more precise point about how silence in this medium isn’t golden, it’s deadly.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Barbara – I LOVE this analogy! You hit the nail on the head with this example, and it’s a good example for companies to keep in mind when they are engaging in social media.