It really comes down to expectations, doesn’t it? If you expect a sub-one hour response, and don’t get it, you’ll be disappointed. If another person, however, expects a response the next day, then a response within two hours is a pleasant surprise.

As for the purpose of the button to be notified of comments, I think different people have different purposes. For sure, for some it’s to see what the reaction to their comment is. For others (and I have someone in mind), I’m willing to bet it’s because they want to keep up with the conversation.

I think you have to consider what the person making the comment was actually trying to do, which, Ron, you alluded to. But you said if the goal is to improve member service at Navy Federal, then a slow response to a comment is fine. And what if that’s not the sole, or even primary, goal? I submit the true goal is to be heard and validated, and for that to feel authentic, it’s got to happen faster than within “just a few hours.”

P.S. I see there’s a box I can check after I hit “Submit” that will notify me of follow-up comments via email. Hmmm. Wonder if that’s because the true purpose of my comment here (and of everyone else’s) is to elicit reactions to me/us?

The decision to respond in seconds, minutes, days or ever, ought to be dependent on the marketing stance and image of the company.

So … how does the NFCU respond and react to customers? The answer to that question will determine the appropriate response to Twitter, blogs, newspaper stories with comments enabled.

I think we are getting too twitterified.

From the post,

“From past experience, if you respond to a person’s negative comment it’s almost guaranteed that they will respond to your response. This is where you could find yourself in a back and forth that a) takes up a lot of time and b) gets you off your message.

And I don’t care who you are, if you don’t plan for this you’re going to find yourself in trouble. Trust me, it’s happened to me. The negative comments that correspond directly to a specific blog post are the easy ones to handle; primarily because you can typically support your writing, admit a mistake or respectfully disagree.

The comments that can be problematic are the ones that come from left field and are more attacking in nature. For this type of situation I think it’s good to respond, but if they respond back with more attacks you invite the person to contact you offline or state that you are only going to approve and respond to comments pertaining to the original post [speaking in terms of blogs].*”

I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve seen this blow up on a person/company. Knowing how you are going to respond and when you are going to stop responding is very important.

Ryan

In fact, I make a pretty concerted effort to not mention sites like yours.

If the purpose of your site is to spur Navy FCU to improve its service to its members, then — while I might not be a big fan of your tactics — I do applaud your goal.

I just wanted to thank you for the mention in your blog (www.navyfederalsucks.com). Navy Federal has only recently started to ramp up its Twitter operations, I like to think it is because of increased pressure from a formerly silent but growing population of their membership. If they would only put the same effort towards helping their membership in the first place, then they wouldn’t have to worry about response teams and damage control.

Chris