A few days ago, I tweeted my frustration at being forced to turn to Twitter to get decent customer service.

In today’s competitive landscape, customer service is more important and challenging than ever; the voice of a customer can spread virally in an instant and seriously damage a company’s reputation with lasting SEO consequences.

I contacted Fitness First via email a couple of weeks ago to report a health and safety hazard at my local gym. Now, if I were in the Gym Manager’s shoes, I would promptly investigate a health and safety complaint and take the time to thank my customer via email for his/her feedback.

I received no response, and decided to turn to Twitter to find out if / how quickly my complaint would be dealt with.

Within the next 30 minutes of Tweeting @FitnessFirstUK, the company’s PR agency had emailed me requesting my contact details. Within three hours, I had received a voicemail AND an email from the Head Office apologising for a lack of responsiveness while informing me that my complaint would be promptly dealt with.

Brands are understandably, absolutely terrified of consumers ‘kicking off’ through social channels. And because of the visibility online, there is a tendency to give online customer service priority over offline.

The challenge for brands is to get the balance between online and offline customer service, and in the Fitness First scenario, it’s also about educating local branches at micro level.

The gym’s central team were clearly concerned about their reputation being damaged and promptly got back to me, whilst my local gym appear to be blissfully unaware of social and the implications of a potential crisis.

At time of writing, the issue remains unresolved.

Laurence is a senior planner at Headstream. Image via free-pass.co.uk.