Should a CM be snarky on twitter?

Community General Discussion
347

HAte to tell you this but that is how the adult world works. Always has and always will.

Defuse the situation and the angry customer leaves happy and tells 3 of their friends about the great service and how the employee went out of their way to fix a problem and tells their friends they should go there.

Fuel the flames by being snarky or rude back and the customer leaves even angrier then before and they tell everyone about how bad the service was.

It’s like 2 kids fighting. Who does the teacher always catch the first to throw a punch or the 2nd. It’s always the 2nd kid and the employee being snarky or rude is that 2nd kid and they are usually the ones to get the harsher punishment because they were the one that was caught.

348

Let’s go back several Q and A to drive your poi t home.

World Quest Grouo Finder, now I te tiinally broken by Blizzard, says hi. You are SPOT ON with this comment.

349

On twitter?

Try the passive aggressive, rude, snarky responses we get on the forums. o_0

It’s better to hate on your customers than communicate with them in 2019.

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350

I agree with this. He should be able to say whatever he wants on his personal account. As long as he is professional on official accounts, then I’m good.

We’re all human and have our opinions. If you haven’t worked in customer service before, then you wouldn’t understand the mindset of someone who does.

The last thing anyone wants is to have their customers follow them home after they’ve clocked out. I know I talked about customers to my inner circle back in the day when I worked in customer service.

351

Some jobs are tough.

They are just objectively difficult because they work against the basic tenants of human psychology.

Running into a raging fire is probably very difficult as your psychology can be quite firm on how bad an idea that is. But we still have firemen (women? People?).

Community Managers have to deal with our many unkindness’s and as a result they end up being the face of the company. But, believe it or not, that probably isn’t the hardest part of the job.

The most taxing and difficult part of the CM’s job, I think, is that it is always on, 24/7, all the time. It doesn’t matter where he posts from, what account catches the tweet or what time or day or night it came through. If its him, then its him. Period.

And this is where we mention a little thing called professionalism. I think we all know what that is and we all know that the tweet in question was lacking in its merit.

Private account? So? Here we are talking about it. Here it is all over the official forums. One might argue that the account wasn’t private enough but that’s largely an academic point now cause here it is all over Blizzards face like an errant egg.

One of the things that professionalism does is to separate the jerks from the professionals. If I accost some one in the manner of a jerk and the person responds in a professional manner it is simple to see who is in the wrong.

But when a couple of jerks are playing clap-back, its hard to know who is actually the face and who is the heel.

When a professional cannot conduct him or herself in a professional manner, this is what we get.

You and I and everyone else here are just faceless pixelated nobodies from whom nothing beyond the ToS is expected.

Community Manager is a tough, thankless job that never gives a social media break and requires professional behavior at all times.

And he flubbed it.

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352

Everyone talks smack about there customers to their co-workers even with their management but to eachother because they are venting. The problem arises when people air the dirty laundry for the whole world to see and that is what posting things that reflect bad on ones employer even if it is on their personal accounts.

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353

Just because that’s how it works in some places doesn’t mean that’s how it SHOULD work. That’s called cyclical logic.

No one is saying people in service roles should go around being rude. They should be humble and respectful.

However, if a customer is being a jerk they deserve whatever snark they get. You don’t get a Get-out-of-jail-free card for human decency simply because you’ve paid for a service.

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354

I never snarked at him

355

THat is why like I said in an earlier post.

If you feel like you can’t handle the situation without being snarky or rude then you call for a supervisor to take over and handle the situation.

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The problem is that ‘customers’ follow him on his personal account and field work related questions and attacks because they weren’t getting responses on official Blizzard accounts.

If you follow someone on their personal account to continue that aggression, that’s between the people involved and in no way reflects on the company. I would not stand for customers following me on my personal FB page to continue their attacks.

I’d drop the professionalism in a heart beat and level them into the ground. Leave personal accounts out of it.

Therefore, I disagree, he can say whatever he wants on his private account. That’s my opinion.

357

And he didn’t snark at you

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358

This only works in situations where everything the customer is demanding is on the table.

That is almost never the case with a game like this one. Defusing the situation and capitulating to demands aren’t the same thing, and shouldn’t be treated as though they are.

I still don’t agree with the sentiment that someone expressed earlier that we as a collective of gamers are entitled to professionalism when we’re behaving like petulant and obnoxious children.

We’re no more or less entitled to that than the employee is entitled to do their work without being verbally abused and insulted. It goes both ways.

It’s been said time and again that Blizzard needs to work on their communication. Fine, yes, they do. So do we. I suspect that when we finally start managing our own behavior such that we are collectively presenting ourselves as rational adults, at that time and that time only will Blizzard open up more regular communications with us.

But I’d be lying through my teeth if I said I ever thought that would be likely to happen.

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359

But he implied it

360

we’re going to go there and act all offended about someone being snarky? i’d have more of an issue if i actually followed these people on twitter in the first place.

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The proper action would of not to have gone tit for tat with the person resulting in a response that gives the perceived notion of reflecting bad on his employer but to have blocked said person from being able to respond to his twitter account ever again.

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363

He was very specific with the type of person he was talking about.

Did you call for someone’s job over something small? If not you’re misinterpreting his implication.

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364

I think several people from Blizz thinks that their customers don’t get things to serious because WoW it’s just a game. I mean, they are not a healthcare company where being impolite it’s not tolerated because health it’s a really serious issue.
Even so, if that were the case, then will be wrong. Doesn’t care if WoW it’s just a game, payers customers must be respected in any kind of business.

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365

He told me I should support game devs even tho they suck. I’m paraphrasing

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366

RIght, because that blocked person can’t just go make another account to continue the harassment.

If it’s his private account, he should be allowed to put someone in their place. It’s his account.

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367

No you’re misrepresenting, and being disingenuous.

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