Kia's Making an Effort, Social Media Made it Happen

I wanted to write this before I forget. My Kia issues have been resolved. After just 2 weeks of venting my Kia frustrations via social media outlets, they finally contacted me to help us move toward a resolution.

Suffice it to say, my happiness can be bought. Essentially, I'm a cheap date, and I'm a sucker for some nice words and a little effort. I'd rather be in a positive relationship than a negative one, so I'll keep up my end of the bargain if they will. Are you tired of the cliche's yet? I'll move on.

Anyway, the Kia customer service representative who I'm working with said something interesting during our talks. Though Kia received my complaint letter via snail mail back in August 2007, it wasn't until they saw one of my numerous social media posts that they acted. Apparently, there are some sites Kia monitors, and one of my rants came to their attention.

He alluded to the fact that Kia, and other companies he was familiar with, are still trying to wrap their heads around these types of conversations being posted on the web, and how to go about mediating them. Given my interest and research into the topic of companies using social media, I'm not surprised.

I'm only disappointed that it had to go this far. That I had to invest the time and effort to post my grievances online -- all the while getting more angry -- to finally get their attention.

But I was a little surprised (and very pleased) that the customer service representative didn't ask me to remove or update any of my posts. I've decided to update them voluntarily, because I feel it's the responsible thing to do.