Unstaffed virtual presences a potential danger. Staffed presences an opportunity
Got a beef with Comcast? A difference of opinion with the Ontario Public Service? A lousy customer experience with Microsoft? Unstaffed corporate presences in virtual environments like Second Life are the perfect place to share your story with other customers and would-be customers.
It isn't at all uncommon for an organization to throw together a promotional build in a virtual environment, and to basically just leave the marketing message laying around unattended — much the same way as early ventures onto the Web were little more than scanned brochures. However, in a virtual environment, your presence cuts both ways, as customers are able to readily and freely share and discuss negative experiences with your products and services, too.
Virtual environments bring people together around foci. Communities accrete around common interests, and while there may not be overwhelming torrents of visitors to corporate builds, people do visit them.
Sometimes (albeit rarely) these areas are staffed on a regular schedule with staff ready to discuss products, future directions, arrange sales of goods or services, and gather feedback from visitors, both about their virtual experience, and about physical experiences with the organization and its services.
In the absence of staff, however, you can find corporate presences acting as a focus for protests, but more often for the distinctive and articulate individuals who have received poor treatment at the hands of a customer service representative, been the recipients of faulty goods or merchandise, and the occasional disgruntled ex-employee.
They're happy to make themselves heard. Happier than you are if you operate such a presence and don't bother to staff it.
A staffed presence is a unique opportunity to defuse, solve or remedy these problems. The staff have personal contact with the people who have the problem, and can discuss the situation, and communicate solutions back into your business to ameliorate or prevent these situations in future, and hopefully bring some more positive resolution to individuals.
You obviously can't solve every customer complaint, not even every reasonable one — but if people see that you are genuinely trying your best, and engaging them at a personal level, that can present a viral message far stronger than a million visits per day.