Guest Post- The SanDisk Story

February 1, 2009 · Comments

sandisk sansa I asked Beth Ziesenis from Life on Avenue Z to tell me more about her online experience with SanDisk. She and I were talking on Twitter about my recent positive experience with WalMart via Twitter, and Beth had her own story to tell. So, here we are:

The SanDisk Story

A couple of weeks ago, I fired off a grumpy tweet after a frustrating 5-mile run with a SanDisk Sansa MP3 player that I was ready to flush.

“Forgive me, Steve Jobs. It’s been 2 years since my last iPod. I bought a SanDisk player, and it sucks.”

In reply to a running buddy, I added, “This SanDisk is the worst ever. Broken wheel, sketchy battery. Today screen blanked out.”

I checked back a couple of hours later, and I saw a tweet from SanDisk PR Manager Rachel Polish. “I’m with SanDisk. Would you email me at rachel.p—–@sandisk.com and let me know what’s happening? Thanks so much.”

Even before I hit the reply button, my opinion of SanDisk was transformed. Rachel Polish wasn’t one of my followers. SanDisk monitors the Twitterverse for mentions of its products and company, and jumps into conversations when a little PR is called for. They work Twitter as more than just a corporate presence – they use Twitter to reach out to customers.

My SanDisk Sansa had been giving me fits for more than a year, but I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of it. My family spent weeks researching MP3 players to find the perfect one to support my running habit, and they had presented this one to me as THE BIG GIFT of Christmas 2007. The guilt of not liking THE BIG GIFT was bad enough, but when my mother developed one of those illnesses that bring on the whispers of “Well, this may be the last Christmas…”, the guilt grew even larger.

After a couple of emails with Rachel and an explanation of the importance of keeping THE BIG GIFT, I received a note from their shipping department that a new SanDisk Sansa Fuze was headed my way. My original gritching about my old player reached my 600+ followers. When I tweeted about the replacement and SanDisk’s customer service, the news was retweeted to thousands.

Twitter Search and other tools make it easy for companies to set up RSS feeds to monitor discussion about their brands. In the time it took to write this post, more than 150 tweets have mentioned BlackBerry. Some 300+ tweets have mentioned AT&T, many of them with expletives. Are these companies doing what they can to reach out to customers?

A sad prologue…

My new BFF Rachel Polish just became a victim SanDisk cutbacks. A PR whiz woman like that needs a great job! Any leads?

Beth Ziesenis (pronounced ZEES-nis) writes at Life on Avenue Z

Photo credit Chilled Phil

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  • drag2drop
    Alltough this was a very good Service from San Disk, my favourite is my Ipod Nano. Cause it doesn´t even need a service....
  • stevenimmons
    Very interesting narrative. The 'feedback loop' from consumers to producers / manufacturers has never been more vibrant, and the 'smart ones' will be utilising all communications channels for their (and naturally their customers') benefit. It is a sad footnote to read of the loss of Rachel to the company as this hints at a internal conflict as to the true value of quality and 'instant' PR. Hopefully the visionaries will win out.
  • Reminds me of my own story with Dell. My laptop monitor died, I moaned on Twitter, Dell found me, we met in person at an event, emailed me after with links to the part on eBay. I have the whole story on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/orangejack/3019883...
  • A great example of why every large company that can afford to manage a twitter account should. Not only can companies talk to their peeps but, more importantly, their peeps can talk to them. That dialog is key and makes people on both sides feel good. I recently posted my experiences with JetBlue in the same light.

    Here is the link. (http://www.daveraffaele.com/2009/01/social-medi...). If it doesn't show just Google "How JetBlue Used Twitter to Treat Me Like A Human" and you should find it.

    Great post and thanks for sharing your experiences.
  • A perfect example of the benefits of wise and attentive corp. America in social media circles.

    Big biz, R U listening?

    Cheers

    George
  • Wow! That's some serious Twitter Power! (And some serious attention to customer service.) Savvy companies looking for innovative ways to use social media are to be applauded.
  • it's sad that this is the exception and not the rule for customer service, but it is.

    Great story for Sandisk (but sad ending for their former employee). Hopefully they have a replacement signed up to do this.
  • We recently had our own social media lesson at Queensboro. (Story on the blog-"What we learned from the Free polo promotion) I think we finally have the ammunition we need (in the marketing/pr dept.) to convince everyone NOT in marketing/pr that this new-fangled universe is here to stay! We put customer service first-one reason I like working there. (I'm not just saying that-the customer service is what attracted me there in the first place and has kept me there.) I relish my job as the social media monitor/participator because I get to dive in and help our customers quickly with it. It is an amazing tool if used right.

    Incidentally, we finally started tweeting. We're over @queensboroshirt.

    Great story. I'm going to share it!
  • That is a great story and a great idea for companies for be looking at social networks to see what their word of mouth presence is.

    http://www.swichkow.com/Blog
  • I've had bad experience with Sandisk myself. I bought an mp3 on boxing day, and a couple days later... dead. It wouldn't even work, so I took it back to Best Buy and exchanged it for another. Surprisingly... a couple weeks later, it stopped working but by that time it was half way across the country so I couldn't exchange it.
  • Rachel is indeed a rocking person and I'm fortunate to call her my friend. I've been tweeting her need for a new jb since her layoff - she'd be an asset to any company.
  • Twitter is proving to be a really useful tool, as this example illustrates so beautifully. Living and working in South Africa, it has much less of a following over here, but I anticipate it will take off in due course. I for one am a believer, and got myself a twitter account.
  • MY favorite part of this story is your endorsement of Rachel Polish as an outstanding PR professional. In a tight job market - with many qualified candidates for each job opening - you need to stand out. Endorsements like that will help differentiate Rachel. The best kind of personal branding comes from those around us. This story appears on the top of page 2 on a Google search for "Rachel Polish" Since hiring managers and recruiters are using Google to help them make decisions about candidates, this will certainly be valuable to Rachel! Good luck Rachel - in your job search!
  • This is what I have always said about customer service- all we want to know is that something is listening to our concerns. We want to be heard by the company!
  • Courtney-The Apple of My Eye
    Great story...if companies were smart they would all have a twitter account and have their company on high alert. It's too bad SanDisk cut the most important job in their company! Good luck to Beth!
  • I love this story. Love, love, love it. I love it because the intent was not to get any freebies. Sad to hear that the PR person's job was cut.
  • Chris,

    That is a heartwarming (and very encouraging) story. But it begs the question if I would get the same coddling as you did. Perhaps, but I am not sure.

    Still, this is more ammo for our discussions with recalcitrant social networking folks.

    Thanks.
  • Chris -

    I completely agree and am sold on the power of Twitter as a company voice. We receive our primary feedback from twitter comments. It's invaluable. Also, I have made more business development connections via twitter than the old way sending emails and calling. A company today cannot live without this presence. On top of that, it's easy with Twitter search.

    Sad to hear that that particular PR person lost their job.

    Jon at zhiing
  • Chris and Beth-
    This is a great story and one that we try to live by every day. We're still fairly new in the Twitterverse (about 8 months) but I've had such an amazing time 'meeting' and helping our customers. It's very gratifying and it's SO easy to do- I'm honestly amazed there aren't more companies present.

    On the flip side, I know when I've been helped out by companies on Twitter (Tweetdeck, RunKeeper) I'm always very grateful for their quick assistance.
  • Hi Chris,

    Southwest airlines should take a lesson from Sandisk. I tweeted directly to Southwest (short tweet - no room for many details) that my son had a terrible experience with their airline. I was a huge Southwest fan and talked him into giving them a try. He encountered really rude service by one employee at the Denver airport. Southwest's response "oh sorry that usually doesn't happen - I hope he will try us again" I was surprised - I thought that at the very least they would pretend to be interested in what happened or who the offending employee was. Why embrace social media if you can't figure out how to use it as a positive for your company?
  • Great story, even with the sad prologue. I'm sure Rachel will land on her feet.

    I was pleasantly surprised earlier today when I sent an annoyed tweet out about Powerpoint not being included in the base MS Office suite I was offered with the pre-installed trial I have on my new laptop. Within an hour @officegal replied to me with a link to more options and resolved my issue. Nice!

    Jim | @jstorerj
  • I sent a tweet about a tax service being down, and not mentioning anything on their site about current issues. Within 10 minutes the site had an apology on it, and though they listed no ETA made sure people weren't trying to use it.

    Was it because of my tweet? Doubtful....but I have faith that more and more companies will figure it out.
  • steveellwood
    I'm looking at how corporates should engage with social media, and I like the SanDisk story; hearing that Rachel was cut, does make me wonder how much corporates really value their online reputation though.

    I was saddened by Mary White-Cornell's tale of @SouthwestAir, though. I've highlighted their Twitter presence in the past, and I'm surprised they didn't try some form of engagement. Bad day, or just a PR presence on Twitter hoping they don't get called out?
  • Great story, but a sad ending. I am sure Rachel will find a job, she's obviously got an understanding of how twitter/social media can be utilised to help the customer. I work for a UK-based company - Carphone Warehouse - and recently started using twitter. Although I tweet as '@guy1067' I don't hide the fact that I work for CPW and that my primary objective is using twitter to help our customers. In terms of how we are using twitter, we have used it in the following ways:

    - see what people are saying about Carphone Warehouse. If they say something complimentary about us or the service they have received from one of our stores, I'll thank them and let them know that I'll pass on their feedback to the shop they were at
    - help people resolve their problems when they tweet about it or when we have provided them with a less than satisfactory experience try to turn it around
    - customers have let us know when the info on the web site is wrong, and we have updated it accordingly
    - provide helpful tips of the day for your mobile, BlackBerry, iPhone (ie. how to set up picture messaging, synchronising your BB, removing SIM card from iPhone).

    What I'm finding is that there is no grand answer or one particular way to use twitter. It's doing simple things, being there when a customer needs you, being helpful and honest when you've not done something very well and open to changing it. Companies will use it in different ways, and the only way to find out whether it works for you is to firstly understand the customer and their needs, and then apply that to twitter; you may find it's not relevant for you, but you won't know until you try it out. Good luck, it's worth it.
  • Hi Mary White-Cornell -

    I'm am extremely sorry if my response back to you didn't seem sincere or genuine. I assumed if you were still upset about the situation we would have had further discussion about it or you would have dm'd me, obviously the wrong assumption and for that I am sorry.

    The fact of the matter is I learn something new about the power of Twitter daily. There is no one way to use the tool. And, anyone who claims to be an expert in Twitter should humble themselves...the tool is simply too unevolved. One minute I am tweeting about weather delays, the next minute about the peanut changes.

    Again, I am sorry and if you are still upset about the experience your son had, or your experience with me on Twitter please email me: christi.day@wnco.com.

    Thanks and happy twittering!

    Christi
  • I see the great value at the consumer level. I see opportunity for B2B, but it needs more case studies like this to create more critical mass. Thanks for sharing the story.
  • We owned three Sansa SanDisk MP3 players in 1.5 years and they all three fell apart. They were awful. Our attempts to solve the issue with their customer service was also awful! I am glad you caught their attention twittering. Probably wanted to save their face on twitter. They certainly didn't give a darn about our three "situations"!
  • Great PR for SanDisk.

    However, I owned a Sansa too - and I sold it via Amazon. Why? It didn't break. The software interface was SO much harder to navigate than the iPods that I vowed to never get any other MP3 player than an iPod ever again.

    (I just bought my family's 8th iPod. The very first one is mine - and it's still running fine! We sold 4 of them to upgrade. I'm the low man on the totem pole, even though I'm dad, so I keep my 20gb gen-2 Classic running. A new battery recently!)
  • David
    i was playing around with kickapps a few months ago, said so in a tweet.
    30 minutes later kick apps added me as a friend, and i have been getting helpful updated ever since. GREAT services.
  • I have a SanDisk Sansa and love it. Great to know the company cares about consumers!
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