Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Domino's and Bank of America show that having humans handling social media doesn't mean they'll act human.

Last week, Domino’s stepped in it on Facebook. A customer took to the brand’s Facebook page to compliment the chain, which then responded with a rote “Sorry for your bad experience” response. Digiday, along with others, covered the snafu, which appeared to point out the perils of relying on automated responses in social media.

And yet the error was actually a mistake made by a human, according to Domino’s. In much the same way as Bank of America screwed up last month by having a social media team sounding a lot like robots, a Domino’s employee mistook the compliment for a complaint. The employee then, it would appear, gave the default response for social media complaints. Domino’s, to its credit, tried to regain its footing by taking it in stride. The rub with brands in social media is that they’ll need humans, who are prone to make mistakes....