It took me a while to think of a good exemplary company to analyze for this week’s homework assignment but I think I finally managed to figure out a good one when playing on Xbox Live yesterday – Microsoft. After all, it is among top 10 most reputable companies according to Fortune’s 2011 ranking. The idea came up to my mind when at some point Xbox Live broke down and none of the users could log back in to the service to play online – it was not long before I found myself checking one of Microsoft’s Twitter accounts (@XboxSupport) to look for their feedback or an ETA on how long will the downtime be. Since Microsoft is a huge company with many different departments, I have decided to focus on only one – the one responsible for Xbox 360 game console.
When I visited the aforementioned Twitter page, the following account description drew my attention: “Guinness World Record Holder: Most Responsive Brand on Twitter! Tweeting from 6am - 12am PST M-F & 10am - 6pm Sat – Sun” (@XboxSupport 2011). I was honestly astonished when I noticed how many daily replies do they generate and how swiftly do they reply with a common to Customer Service ‘thank you for contacting us, we are already working on it’ type of answer, to dissatisfied customers who could not log in to their service. In this sense, I believe that this Microsoft department exercises the two–way symmetrical communication, which is because Xbox Live is a paid online gaming service that revolves mostly around Customer Service. It is therefore understandable that, as a company, they strive to help their public to the best of their abilities in order to reach consensus and that they show highly proactive approach regarding mutual communication using different means – from telephone support lines, through letters and emails, to various social media such as Facebook and, heck, even the ‘under-140-character-messages-allowed-only’ Twitter.
However, dissecting this particular department made me understand that it is not always possible to definitely assess one general communication model used by a company. I realized that in Microsoft’s case the Contingency Theory most certainly applies – after all like I said – it is a huge company with many different departments which most likely require different communication models, e.g. I am highly doubtful if the communication model of Xbox Live department is the same as that of another department within the company whose target public is different.
As to what can be done to improve Microsoft’s communication further – although I know it may not sound like the best answer I honestly have no idea how communication of a company currently in the top 10 of most reputable companies, a company who holds a Guinness World Record in Twitter responsiveness can be improved further. According to Cancel et al., “The contingency theory suggests that many factors affect whether more accommodation or more advocacy will be effective in achieving departmental and organizational objectives in the short and long term” (1999:173). Obviously no company is perfect and there surely is some room for improvement but at this point, it is apparent to me that generalization is not possible and any attempts to improve the communication could only be successful if focused on a particular department within the company, with these particular factors unique to this specific department.
P.S. Just an interesting detail – it took me roughly 2 hours to write this entry. During this time, Xbox Support Twitter posted precisely 185 new tweets. Just to give you an idea of how ‘responsive’ they are.
References:
· Cancel, A., Mitrook, M. and Cameron, G. (1999) Testing the Contingency Theory of Accommodation in Public Relations. Public Relations Review, 25(2), pp. 171-197;
· Xbox Support (2011) Xbox Support (xboxsupport) on Twitter [online]. Twitter. [Accessed 4 October 2011]. Available at: <http://twitter.com/#!/xboxsupport>.
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