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 Saturday, June 06, 2009

Another Reason to Love Twitter

By Diana Hsieh @ 7:04 AM

Paul and I are huge fans of the bulk nuts at Whole Foods, including their pistachios. However, the pistachios I bought earlier this week simply weren't up to their usual standard. They were all the dregs. So, on Thursday, after eating a few of them without much delight, I posted the following tweet:
The @WholeFoods pistachios I just bought are way below their usual standard. Perhaps an effect of the earlier recall?
Although the Whole Foods pistachios weren't subject to any recall, I thought that perhaps pulling so many pistachio products off the market might have affected the quality of the available supply. However, within about 12 hours, I got the following tweet reply from WholeFoods, the twitter account of the Whole Foods corporate office:
@DianaHsieh Quality shouldn't have changed - if you're unsatisfied with the product, feel free to bring back for an exchange/refund.
Of course, I already know that I can do that. Nonetheless, to hear it from them gives me warm fuzzies. Plus, now I think I might return them. Why suffer through mediocre pistachios?

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 Comments

Saturday, June 6, 2009 at 10:49:14 mst
Comment ID: #1
Name: Jason
E-mail: jgold22(at)gmail.com
URL: http://www.thoughtsofanegoist.blogspot.com

Whole Foods' Twitter account perfectly exemplifies one often overlooked aspect of why government safety mandates are harmful--they steer the conversation towards meeting regulatory requirements instead of the actual issue at hand. In its feed a couple tweets above yours, Whole Foods says "We hold all our vendors to allergen labeling requirements mandated by the FDA." The conversation should be about the process Whole Foods has chosen to ensure accurate labeling.

Unfortunately the practice of companies championing in their advertising the fact that they meet government mandates is all too common, and Twitter is just the next medium for the same message. For the time being, businesses are stuck with adhering to such mandates, and the best business leaders (like John Allison of BB&T) will speak out against such mandates and establish their own standards as much as they can, but at the least, no company should brag about their regulatory trophy case. Twitter shows that technology only brings about new means of having the same conversation, and that only philosophy can steer the conversation in a new direction.

Saturday, June 6, 2009 at 12:01:08 mst
Comment ID: #2
Name: Jim May
E-mail: seerak(at)gmail.com

When I read

"Paul and I are huge fans of the bulk nuts at Whole Foods"

my first thought was that not all of their customers are like that...

Saturday, June 6, 2009 at 19:12:06 mst
Comment ID: #3
Name: Spoudaios

While I agree with Jason about how the government safety mandates can be harmful, sometimes when their business really depends on it, companies go further than the government mandates.

For example, Trader Joe's stopped carrying a low carb pasta after their private testing determined that the label was inaccurate. Apparently Trader Joe's regularly tests vendor's products using third party labs, even though they have no such requirement to do so.

Saturday, June 6, 2009 at 19:50:01 mst
Comment ID: #4
Name: Jason Crawford
E-mail: jasonc(at)alumni.cmu.edu
URL: http://www.jasoncrawford.org

Yeah, Twitter (and social media in general) is having a major impact on how companies do customer service. Monitoring Twitter replies and searches for company references is starting to become standard practice. Entire startups (e.g., CoTweet) are now devoted to building tools for companies to use to manage their Twitter presence and reputation.

Wednesday, June 10, 2009 at 12:00:53 mst
Comment ID: #5
Name: Chris Baker
E-mail: chrisbaker(at)iname.com


John Mackey is one of the few honest CEO's in America today.

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