A while back we published an article that looked at some of the reasons why customer service is terrible in Zimbabwe. One of the reasons touted was Zimbabweans don’t complain to the right people. Well there’s a group out there on Facebook that’s doing something about that. Name and Shame them (Zimbabwe).

Necessary

The group provides a platform for people to name and shame businesses or people who have not lived up to promises or committed some other harm on individuals. It has a decent group size of over 15000 and seems to be Harare focused. In the group people raise complaints ranging from poor service, undelivered promises and downright scams. The group is an open group with approved membership so you have to answer just two questions so admin can verify your profile and allow you to post.

Responses

What impressed me about the group is a fairly consistent response rate from other group members. Generally, posts gather in the range of 60-80 comments. These of course contain questions seeking to clarify what exactly happened or how the events transpired. Commiserations also feature greatly in the comments so you certainly won’t feel alone. Abuses rarely happen in isolation so it is not surprising to find a few other people who have experienced the same thing.

One small thing makes the difference

One thing about this group caught my eye and it is probably the best thing about it. Where possible group members have a tendency to either tag or direct posters to the responsible parties. One member decided to complain about an issue they had with bakers Inn staff and they were given the social media account responsible for dealing with such complaints to direct their complaint toward. In another case the relevant company had their social media account tagged to the post via comment to make them aware.

The real power of social media is the ability it gives people and businesses to listen. This may sound strange to some but we used to have to wait for jokes to trickle to us. I laugh at how in days of old product packaging bore the message “if you are unsatisfied please write a letter to…”. By the time you are done writing the letter you’ve forgotten how bad the experience was. And then you would still have to affix a stamp and go all the way to a post box to post it. We live in a great time where it’s become that much easier to tell the right people how we feel and groups like this are a big part of this effort.