If you’ve ever been home-schooled or know anyone who has, you know that there’s not a lot of events in the community dedicated to home-schoolers other than the sports day and home-school groups that were started by homeschooling families. My wife just recently started home-schooling this year, so she’s still getting all of those group functions in order and getting more information about them.
Back in December my wife came across the Home-School Day Camp that the Houston Zoo was hosting on January 27th. The kids were thrilled as they absolutely love going to the Houston Zoo. We’re always taking them to the park and they always ask to go to the zoo. So, when this opportunity came, she got on the Houston Zoo website and started getting more information about registering for the event. This was where sparks, which started a small fire, happened.
My wife tried, unsuccessfully, several times to register and pay for the event. She was met with declined payments (for no apparent reason), was locked out of the website and kept seeing the coming to a screeching halt. She did this over the course of 2-4 weeks leading up to my involvement on Sunday January 18th. Yes, my tone was harsh, a little on the side of immature and unprofessional, but my frustration level had reached critical mass that night. Why so frustrated? That night, she checked the website to give it the old college try to purchase the tickets only to find the site telling us the event was sold out!
Being a web developer and usability evangelist, it’s incredibly frustrating when a website or a feature on a site; especially ones so prominent, simply don’t work. If you recall from a previous post about doing better business with social media, I discussed how Twitter was used to, again, defuse a situation that stirred up some controversy at Discovery Green. Knowing the power Twitter has, I knew my comments would generate some interest as to why I was so upset. And, it did…a little more then I anticipated as I evidently offended the local company and its employees behind the website. Come to find out, the issues we were experiencing had nothing to do with them, but nonetheless, feelings were hurt and for that, I apologize.
I was contacted via direct message on Twitter from one of the employees of this local company asking me why I was so upset and if I realized they did that site. My initial reaction was that regardless of who did the site, something was very wrong with this specific functionality, again, nothing to do with what this company had already been doing for them. They calmed me down by ensuring me that they would be in contact with the necessary people at the Houston Zoo to help me with this problem.
I received a phone call the very next day from David Brady, marketing associate for the Houston Zoo. This was less than 24 hours after my initial tweets! Talk about fast customer service! My tweets regarding the situation had made it to his desk and he apologized for the inconvenience and informed me that this would be handled immediately as it was a technical error on their end that prohibited my wife from registering for the event. Following that conversation with Mr. Brady, I got another phone call two days later from another associate who was ready to take my information to register my wife and kids.
I can’t express the sheer gratitude I have for those involved with this matter! A huge thank you goes out to a particular individual who got all this started. You know who you are, but I didn’t get permission before hand to use your name 
Social media, especially applications like Twitter, has been a huge influence on large corporations who now monitor keywords for their names or services and provide customer service via those online tools. Now, my situation and how I went about it was more so a personal experiment to test the awareness of this particular company. I most definitely could have gone about it differently, but my question is: would I have received the same amount of care if I had gone through making the phone calls, writing the emails, etc? Side Note: My wife, to this day, has yet to receive a reply back from the Houston Zoo from her contact form submission on the same night I sent my Tweets. I’m not advocating kicking and screaming, cursing and offending anyone to get what you want, please don’t assume that’s where I’m going with this. I still paid for these tickets and did not receive anything extra or free from this, nor was that my intent! I simply wanted my kids to have a great learning experience and a fun time at a place they love so much.
Has social media helped you or do you have a story to share? Please leave your thoughts in the comments area!
Comments
No Responses to “Putting Out Fires with Social Media: My Houston Zoo Experience”