We were recently meeting with one of the top executives of a Fortune 500 company and discussing the power and dynamics of social networks.
The issue being discussed was whether creating a “social network for customer feedback” was a good or bad thing for the organization. One of the executives commented “I’d hate to empower our customers to complain because there is a lot of things we do wrong that they could complain about and opening that dialog up to the public could be dangerous, risky to say the least”.Hmm….so ignoring the issues and hoping customers don’t talk to other customers is a better strategy? Do you think maybe your customers could actually help you solve the very problems that create the complains? Do you think your employees agree with your customers but don’t dare speak up?
Business bureaucracy has brainwashed many people into thinking “nothing can change so hide the truth”, don’t put things out in the open because it is dangerous to admit shortcomings publicly. The social web is dangerous to the bureaucracy of business because it enables customers and employees to “openly discuss and share the very issues that ingrained bureaucracy has caused.”