Freecharge makes video out of mean customer reviews

Reminding us of the famous Jimmy Kimmel's 'Mean Tweets' series, online recharge platform Freecharge, in its latest video, says that it is listening to each and every customer feedback.

A negative consumer review in the digital world can go viral and tarnish a brand's equity. Online companies are always on their toes, addressing consumer complaints and working towards user retention. Freecharge recently created a digital campaign on 'Customer Reviews' featuring its employees, highlighting some of the negative reviews it received on social media platforms (Facebook and Twitter) and app stores.

The video is cleverly executed, in the style of popular American entertainer Jimmy Kimmel's famous 'Mean Tweets' series, where celebrities read rude comments made by viewers on Twitter.

The two-minute-long video begins with a text slide stating, "we searched the internet to see what our customers are saying about us and we found out lot of positive reviews and some negative reviews. Employees from various teams including finance, user retention and customer support, were amused and surprised at how creatively consumers were bashing Freecharge on these platforms."

An employee named Sharat (from finance) says, "You're stealing my recharge and making TV ads. I will complain to Star Sports."

Another one says, "I was going to rate Freecharge for clean UI and ratings, but they spammed me for ratings!" to which Deepak (from user retention) responds, "We are just trying to get a good word out from you, but looks like we've crossed the line."

The company's in-house social media team spent hours collating interesting feedback for the video. While some of it could have been just trolls, others seemed genuine. The video ends with a message from the company that goes – "we're listening and we're working on it..."

Speaking about the campaign, Ashish Virmani, AVP – marketing, Freecharge, says, "We track consumer feedback on social media, app store and consumer complaint emails to improve our product. We stumbled upon really interesting and creative feedback and we decided to create humorous content around it."

Virmani says almost all the company's functions are customer-facing ones, so user feedback impacts employees directly, which is why they decided to shoot the video with the employees.

"Internally, there will be a far greater connect about consumer issues, also, in turn, our users will get to know that all of our teams work in tandem to create a experience for them," he adds.

Freecharge offers prepaid mobile, DTH and internet data card recharges. In the online mobile recharging space, it competes with players like Paytm, Rechargeitnow and mobikwik. Interestingly, telecoms like Vodafone, Airtel and Tata Docomo also have their own online recharging platforms.