Are You Suffering From Internet Rage?

I won’t be the first or the last person to comment upon Internet Rage. Won’t be the first person to remark upon how some people wield their keyboards like a broadswords and take vicious swings at anyone and everyone who irritates them.

This won’t be a post in which I try to diagnose them or cite sections of the DSM-IV explaining why people think a computer and DSL entitles them to act like jerks because there are trained professionals who get paid lots of money to tell us why little Johnny goes crazy whenever his videos of Miley Cyrus Twerking don’t load properly.

Instead let’s call this another voice asking some questions about our online behavior and commenting upon a few things.

Customer Service Is Dead

I certainly understand how some companies can make you want to bang your head against the wall.  Monday afternoon I received a bill from my ISP that didn’t make sense and it took an hour for my question to be answered.

The online chat didn’t work, the FAQs were useless and the telephone number was hidden on the website. But what really started to make me want to scream was the twenty minutes of being on hold.

Part of me wanted to respond by writing a series of blog posts, tweets and Facebook updates in which I skewered the company for wasting my time.

I am tech savvy. I am Internet savvy. I am social media savvy.

If it took me that long to find the information and then get in touch with customer service I can only imagine what would happen for others who are less familiar.

You don’t have to try hard to find multiple other examples of customer service failures either.

But if you look at this from a business perspective what you might see is opportunity. Since the bar is already set so low you don’t need to do much to distinguish your business by providing superior customer service.

Moral Outrage

One of the new guarantees of the Internet Age is that brands/companies will do something outrageous on days when they should be more careful.

Someone will advertise their sale on 9/11 as “blowing up” and hordes of people will castigate them for being insensitive and demand an apology and coupons for 25% off their next order.

But what is sometimes lost in the shuffle is common sense and a question of whether the outrage is merited. Businesses are run by people which means we are going to see some pretty dumb things sometimes.

Sometimes someone is going to be insensitive but there is a difference between doing something unintentionally and intentionally and the response should take that into consideration.

I am not saying that good intentions gone wrong don’t require a response or a consequence but it is worth thinking about how we respond to whatever event we are talking about.

This is also why you need to pay attention to who is handling your social media because what happens before and after is important.

Active/Reactive

Ideally you won’t find yourself in a position in which you have to deal hordes of angry people commenting on your social media platforms but you can be certain that sooner or later you will deal with angry customers and that requires a deft touch.

Angry customers sometimes suffer from Internet Rage and can be very aggressive in their communication. And even if they are not intentionally aggressive online communication doesn’t have any verbal or physical cues for you to work with.

If you can’t see a smile or hear a happy voice you might mistake their words for being an angry missive.

You don’t want to give in to your own Internet Rage and engage in a nasty exchange because once you post your response or email it off you lose control of it all and have no idea what can happen.

There are websites and Internet Memes that are devoted to taking advantage of these moments. and something minor can easily blow up in your face.

You are always better served by being an active communicator and not reactive.

What do you think?