An Open Letter to a Poor Customer Rep

Having sat through 10 hours of football only to see my fantasy championship slip away in the second half of the Cowboys/Skins game this evening, I found myself in a somewhat grumpy mood and in need of a distraction. Luckily an active twitter feed combined with a friend's online dating drama gave me plenty of targets to vent some frustration.

The long and short of it is this:

• The fried tried the Boston branch of a speed dating service called SpeedLADating (www.speedbostondating.com, twitter.com/SpeedLAdating)
• She didn't have a particularly enjoyable experience and provided feedback via Yelp at http://www.yelp.com/biz/speedla-dating-los-angeles-5
• Over eight (yes, EIGHT) months later, this friend received multiple condescending and negative tweets that could be the basis of a book named "Speed LA Dating: How NOT to Promote Your Company Through Social Media"

After a few minutes bouncing between Yelp and Twitter I couldn't help be a little more than ticked that a company focused on making people's lives fun and enjoyable, especially when collecting a fee, were actually being real wankers (they claim to be Brits, so I'll try to use their words now and then). Luckily, they list their full staff email addresses on their website at http://www.speedladating.com/index/chat, so writing an open letter to the whole company wasn't too difficult. For the enjoyment of my 3 remaining readers, here it is:

Subject: Dating is Hard - Good Customer Service Shouldn't Be

Speed Boston Dating Staff,

Let me first apologize for a mass email. It's admittedly a somewhat childish, but also effective way to make a point. 

If you aren't already aware, a somewhat negative but constructive Yelp review from a friend of mine (***Friend's Yelp Handle***) was not taken too well by someone from your staff - for all I know it may be the owner of the company. I'll let you guys do the digging, but the short version of the resulting exchanges are:

-Multiple insults to my friend on twitter

-Disclosure of her full name over twitter

-Many replies of that oh so endearing dry British condescension that we non-UK folk do so love

While I understand that everyone has a right to defend themselves and respond to criticism, you may all want to revisit your organization's approach. Dating can range from frustrating to fun, and if organizations like yours focus on the latter rather than the former you'll find much greater success. Publicly criticizing, mocking and exposing information about those that provide what appear to be very valid feedback, and doing so nearly 8 months after the fact neither put your organization in a positive light nor help differentiate you in what is a competitive market.

I'm hoping the poor excuse of a public face that runs your twitter account treats criticism better in the future, or they'll likely risk customers going very different routes in the near future.

I wish you all a Happy New Year and a better public face in the new year.

So what's my end game here? Simple...dating should be fun (more thoughts on this here, here and here). Some online services (www.okcupid.com in particular) seem to have figured this out and do a good job of making it so. Most folks that online or speed date want to have a good time, meet people and help give back to the community in some way. Having to deal with some bloody customer services twat (there are those Brit words again!) who is neither timely nor effective in her response should not factor into the equation in any way.