I’m really glad that I don’t manage social media for LOFT and Ann Taylor stores (note: in the interest of disclosure, I did offer them my services yesterday). On Sunday they 
announced a huge Cyber Monday sale. They often have online-only discounts…or should I say they often ANNOUNCE online-only discounts. Time and time again the brands’ sites crash in the middle of the one-day-only or hours-only sales. Seriously. This has happened so many times I don’t even bother to shop their online sales anymore. And I LOVE this brand!
Monday was no exception, unfortunately. When I got the reminder email Monday morning, I decided to check their Facebook page. Already they were posting apologies for the site being down on both the Ann Taylor and LOFT pages. This was before 9:00am CST!!
I can’t feel sorry for the brand any longer. I understand that every now and then a brand is going to have site issues during a big sale. But when this happens EVERY time, the brands’ decision-makers just simply aren’t getting it. How can they allow this to continue? Especially in the age of social media when your disgruntled customers can post their angry ‘I’m never shopping your store again’ (or worse: ‘You’ve lost my trust’) posts on Facebook and Twitter for all the world to see! It’s unreal that they haven’t taken extreme measures (many sales ago) to permanently correct this problem. If I were the CEO I’d invest in the largest servers (plural) and hire the absolute best IT people in the US. Whatever it takes.
But I digress…
What prompted this post was not only frustration with Ann Taylor’s incredibly unstable websites, but also my empathy for their social media team. I can only imagine how they must dread coming into the office on the morning of an online sale.
That being said, the social media team surely could’ve done more for their angry customers besides their ‘Sorry for the inconvenience. Thanks for your patience.’ posts. To be fair, they also offered to honor today’s online-only discount in stores. A couple of problems with that, though. Many people don’t have stores in their area, can’t get to a store, don’t want to go to a store, etc. But the two biggest problems with that offer is that several stores didn’t get the memo and wouldn’t honor the discount (some customers even complained that the sales team treated as if they were lying )…and, oh, this was Cyber Monday! Um, yeah. Shopping online was sort of the point.
As a business owner, I’d have found a way to offer those disgruntled customers an even larger discount when (if?) the site was back up. That didn’t happen – not yet, anyway. The social media team simply attempted to placate the angriest complaints while ignoring hundreds of others, I can only assume that – once again – the decision-makers are not giving the social media team anything to work with. The social media managers obviously aren’t in a position to offer anything other than what they’re told to offer. That’s why I have empathy for them. No social media manager worth their salt would allow hundreds of complaints to pile up without doing something to mitigate the crisis – nor should any business owner who values their clientele.
There’s a lesson to be learned here for business owners large and small. Don’t tie the hands of your people on the front lines. Your social media team is in place to help you handle crises and to protect your brand’s reputation – online and off. As a business owner you must give your social media managers tools to work with. For starters, be sure that your server won’t be overwhelmed when lots of people want to purchase your products at the same time. Lots of customers should be a cause for celebration, not a crisis to be managed. If your site is capable of handling the traffic there will be minimal complaints lodged on your social media profiles and your social media team will be able to sincerely address those few issues (and maybe you could afford to give those few folks an extra discount).
Social media managers are your first lines of defense when there’s a crisis. Part of our job is to mitigate negative comments and protect your brand’s reputation, but you have to make decisions that give us the power to make things right for your customers. We are bound by the decisions made in the corner office. Don’t tie our hands. Let us help you. That’s what we do.
So I ask you…
If you were a decision-maker for Ann Taylor brands, what changes would you make to avoid another sale fail situation? Would you have let it go on this long? What would you do if you were on their social media team? Please leave your comments below!
I really like your writing style, superb info , appreciate it for posting : D.
What I find telling is the fact that there is no coverage about the AT site failing all the time. This is the one and only article I ran across after a quick search. Usually following cyber Monday there is always an article or two about sites that couldn’t stay up. Is AT just not news worthy? Well they are certainly no Blackberry. I would imagine that the AT clientele is not the social media generation – which would explain why there is no electronic backlash – atleast not yet. For now it appears to be localized to the AT FB page.
I have been in the computer industry for almost 25 years workig on large enterprise mission critical systems. While AT is not a bank or an airline, it still astounds me that a retail business would allow their ecommerce site to continually fail. That is like having physical stores rendered inoperable. In this day in age of personal devices soon to replace computers (in sheer numbers) I am shocked that a company would put so little stock in their web presence.
Thanks for your comment, E! It is truly shocking that AT seems to be completely clueless about how damaging something like this could be to their brand! Not only that, just last night I received emails from both AT and LOFT again apologizing for the problems and offering another extension of the sale. I checked their Facebook page a few minutes ago and the complaints are STILL rolling in and still no responses from the social media manager(s). It’s truly unbelievable to me! I don’t understand why they wouldn’t just send out an email apologizing and saying something to the effect of ‘You’ve spoken and we’ve listened! We’re taking this time to upgrade our sites and then will be able to offer you better specials and an enhanced online shopping experience.’ I, personally, would appreciate that much more than these constant “extended sale” emails leading to a site that continues to frustrate me!
As for why there’s been no press coverage of this major fail….your guess is as good as mine!
I am by no means completely computer savy but I think what they need is a better server to handle their internet traffic. Or a different marketing company if they hire outside help for their on-line business. Social media being what it is, news of this kind of frustrating problem for a customer spreads like wildfire these days and you can quickly become known as a company to avoid among potential shoppers. Not good.
Thanks for your comment, Rob! You’re right on target…this type of thing is not good for a brand – especially in the age of social media. There seems to be a disconnect with the brand’s decision-makers because they still haven’t fixed the sites, yet continue to promote online sales. Their Facebook pages and Twitter feeds are blowing up with formerly loyal clients vowing never to shop the stores again as well as vowing to spread the word to their friends. All the while, the social media team is deleting some comments, responding to a very few, and ignoring the rest. It’s really a shame as an ongoing problem like this could be lethal for a brand – no matter how nice their clothes are!