TALKING POINT
HOW THE “BANDIT
ECONOMY” AFFECTS
YOU AND YOUR
BUSINESS
By Boniface Ngahu
O
ur studies on the youth
shows that they want to be
entertained by brands, this
also means that the brands they
choose ought to be connecting with
them emotionally through humor. If
you fail to do that they can also opt
to have humor at the expense of your
brand.
social media are not your problem.
Not responding to them is your
problem.
When Social Media Customer
Complaints Become Spectator Sports
Energy and other utilities companies
have be insulted on social media
using unprintable language especially
when black outs occur or supply
is not reliable. In other cases the
consumers are just having fun at the
brand as a result of the frustration.
In social media there is a lot of
showmanship, as a result those who
post stuff to do with your problem
are usually hungry for audience if
they are not seeking answers. Mark
argues that social media complaints
are the thinnest form of customer
complaints in a similar way that
bumper stickers are the shallowest
form of political expression.
According to Mark Kaigwa of Nindo,
a social media agency, as a social care
person for the utility you will end up
realizing that critics and haters on
History also suggests that social
media followership does not easily
convert into votes in the ballot box.
For this reason, when responding
‘‘Our studies on the youth shows that they
want to be entertained by brands, this also
means that the brands they choose ought to
be connecting with them emotionally through
humor. If you fail to do that they can also opt
to have humor at the expense of your brand.’’
18 MAL 13/16 ISSUE
to complaints in social media there
is room for flexibility especially for
complaints that have nothing or little
to do with the service at hand.
For example, Trevor a twenty year
old posted to a telecom’s social care
site that because of the problem
with mobile network his girlfriend
dumped him thinking that he had
switched off his phone on her.
As recourse he requested that the
telecom gives him a new girlfriend
from those who serve in the care
center.
The post attracted many likes and
comments meaning that Trevor had
already captured a captive audience/
spectators who were entertained by
the nature of his complaint.
Seeing the humor in the complaint
the social care agent by the name
Jaymo responded that for Trevor to
get a girlfriend at the care center
there were two conditions one being
that his mobile money balance had to
be respectab le in the range of at least
ten thousand Kenya Shillings. The
second condition was that if he had a
debt of airtime such as Kopa Credo
or Okoa Jahazi he should look for a