Comments on: How Twitter is going to drive up the cost of stuff and reduce competition

By: Jenni

Jenni — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 17:20:43 +0000

The problem with the theory is that “Joe’s Hardware” doesn’t offer the service it seems to think it does. I am no fan of Wal-Mart and I do not expect companies I buy from to monitor Twitter, but to act like the customer service isn’t enough to keep customers there is giving small business way more credit than they deserve. Small businesses want to answer to no one. They can rearrange hours, suddenly closing even though it’s during business hours. They can order that part you want when they feel like it, ignore you to talk to their friends when you are clearly waiting for assistance, and then when there is an issue they are happy to tell you to take your business elsewhere rather than solve the issue. The small businesses that are decent in my community are rewarded with my patronage, furthermore they have survived the Wal-Mart onslaught nicely, probably due to these very customer service skills other small businesses lack. I would strongly suggest to any business that is suffering to thoroughly re-examine its customer service policies. Coupons and discounts only go so far before you just want someone to be nice to you. Even as a Twitter user, as long as my experience with Amazon remains what it has been, people can say what they want and I will still buy. It always comes down to treatment of your customers.

By: How Twitter is going to drive up prices and reduce competition | GerardMcLean.com

Sun, 19 Apr 2009 15:27:09 +0000

[...] Originally published on DogWalkBlog. [...]

By: Allison Davis

Allison Davis — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 14:54:56 +0000

That is an interesting take on how small businesses could be affected. It seems like not a day goes by where I read articles discussing the pros and cons of small companies marketing themselves on Twitter. I personally think that Twitter offers local businesses a unique method of reaching out to consumers in their area and develop ultra-targeted fanbases. The negative side will always be there, but without any risk there wouldn’t be any reward.

By: Rufus

Rufus — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 15:03:01 +0000

@Dave large companies can afford to absorb the cost of change and service. It is the smaller companies with limited resources with really good ideas and products, but are now held to the 24/7, me, me, me standard Twitter is empowering folks that will suffer.

If these small companies get twitterstormed by someone who has the EXPECTATION of something he/she thinks they are entitled to, but was never promised — either implicitly or not — and loses potential business as a result, what good has been gained?

I think Twitterstorms will enable consumers to win battles, but eventually lose the war. The “old way” is going to win out because companies still get sued by people every day, with or without grounds. The cost of insurance and legal counsel is a business reality. If you can no longer afford to protect yourself from your “consumers” you close up shop, loved or not.

I would posit more people love Amazon than hate them. This twitterstorm was a small number of people, yet it probably cost Amazon a lot of money to defend, even though I think they did it badly. I don’t think it would have cost them less if they had done it right and I don’t think the twitterstorm would have been less severe… Amazon is just too juicy a plum; it fed a lot of frenzied folks for a weekend

By: Dave Droar

Dave Droar — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 14:40:01 +0000

This is nice, and an acute observation of the way in which large companies tend to react to threats – with large post-hoc control systems.

This puts me in mind of the reaction to the quality movement when it came over from Japan. Initially people said that it would cost much more to inspect everything for defects – of course what the quality movement is about is not mucking it up in the first place, thus radically reducing costs.

In this case Amazon would have avoided the storm by not making the blunder in the first place. How? remove the philosophy of control inherent in many large company cultures, and instead empower people, encourage a culture where they think for themselves and step back.

This is antithetical to the traditional command and control culture – it smacks of risk and of insubordination, it even requires servant leadership and everyone to work together on the continual improvement of the system of work.

The new social media doesn’t change people’s feelings about brands, but it does make them communicable, and rapidly, which show up the cracks in the old-tech way that traditional organisations work. Command and control enterprises and the philosophy they embody are not sustainable and anything new that comes along will highlight this, as has happened with enabling social networking applications.