As I was reading my credit card bill (which is an anomaly) I noticed that I was charged for 3 items from my hosting company, turns out that they charged 3 domain names which I shut down a year ago - all .asia extensions (they were big a few years ago when it came out) - for $19.99 each.
The first call I made was at 11:15am this morning (Toronto time) to clarify that I never got any email notification, Nicole (billing department) said that they sent an email notification which is something I never received. Turns out that it went to bounce@xxxxxxxx.ca - the hosting company's own email address.
11:40am - second phone call. Spoke with Priscilla who took longer this time as I explained my self again that I never authorized payments for the renewal and pointed out that that email they sent would bounce back to them, considering that there weren't any active email addresses I had on my account.
She puts me on hold for 5 minutes to look for a supervisor (she was clueless as well on why this happened), and came back with the same answer - once it goes through then there are no refunds. I scratched my head, reminded them that the former hosting company I had, to which I transferred all my accounts from, never had any issues refunding unauthorized renewal of domain names.
She stuck to her guns, told her that I was recording this and will post to YouTube, and hung up.
I was going to post the conversation on YouTube but I thought I'd try my luck with Twitter first and see if others were experiencing the same issues. So I did a Twitter Search for @suckyhosting (not really the real name but you get the idea, you put the "@' symbol and the name of the company after - e.g. @kontentstudios) and they all popped up.
I was not alone. So I thought might as well post my issue too, not really expecting any reaction - I just needed to vent.
12:06pm - I posted my concern on their Twitter account.
12:43pm - I get a Twitter response.
12:59pm - I again reiterated my concern on unauthorized billing.
1:20pm - I received a phone call from the hosting company apologizing, they were refunding the amount while we spoke.
Within 2 hours the issue was resolved and my money was refunded, I was in shock and amazed that social media works. IF you TWEET it they will respond FAST.
If you haven't figured it out yet, BIG companies value recommendations from real people, and resolving customer issues echoes loudly in cyberspace. Customer service becomes transparent, it has to, in order for them to attract and retain current clients. If they don't react then they don't care.
The tweet I sent: "@xxxxxxxx is a hosting company crook, took my $60 from unauthorized renewals and won't refund; way to go #xxxxxxsuck - do you even care?
Moral of the story: social media is loud and effective, it can make and break your business. Use it wisely and it will help you get web exposure may it be textually or visually.
If you haven't seen "United Breaks Guitars" then this is your chance. This is the video that initially started it all - United Airlines customer service that backfired on them. It actually involved a Canadian musician named Dave Carroll:
United Breaks Guitars details can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Breaks_Guitars.
KONTENT STUDIOS.COM | Toronto based photographer | web video production | social media
