Is it fair to take shots at a service when its free?

The American Customer Satisfaction Indexreleased its first-ever social media satisfaction scores last week, and Facebook has taken some heat for finishing with a 64% satisfaction rating. Traditional news outlets and social media sites such as Twitter were ablaze with commentary about Facebook's relative poor showing.  (Interestingly, Twitter was not rated in the index.) 

I understand the desire to rate companies when people are paying for their products and services, but what about companies like Facebook whose service is free?  Shouldn't we expect less than amazing service since it's free?  And, are we really customers since it's FREE? It strikes me as odd that Facebook faces so much criticism since, ahem, IT'S FREE!

OK, I guess there are a couple of sides to this.

On one hand, it's natural for us to expect a lot out of an organization as influential as Facebook. Certainly, they've taken notice of all this discussion and will work to improve their perceived level of service in the future as part of their growth strategy.

On the other hand, there should be a limit to what people expect from a free service. We're not forced to use Facebook. I even know several normal, well-adjusted people with active social lives who don't even have Facebook accounts! (Which reminds me, I don't know what they've been up to lately.)

Perhaps as a middle ground we should reserve the right to offer constructive criticism while tempering the amount of expectations we place on a free service. So, the next time you have a gripe about Facebook (or Gmail, Yahoo, or Twitter for that matter), just remember that you get what you pay for.

Comments

[Grace Judson]

Actually, I think I'm going to disagree that it's FREE.

As Facebook users, we don't pay cash for the service. But we DO allow Facebook to make a living by our presence and activities on their site. So I would argue that through the information we provide and the activities we participate in, we are paying in what I see as a very important currency in this electronic era: information and "eyeballs."

Without people willing to have Facebook accounts, they can't stay in business.

So, from several perspectives, seems to me as if (a) the service isn't actually "free," and (b) even if it were, they might have a certain self-interest in providing better customer service!

[Jeff Toister]

That's a good point, Grace. I think I come out on the middle ground. In my view, the enormous amount of criticism Facebook faces is unwarranted because consumers should expect to 'get what they pay for'. For example, I recently had a technical problem with my Facebook account that was very aggravating and I couldn't get any help with it. I was definitely annoyed, but then I realized I was consuming their service at no charge and it should be up to me to make the most of it.

I also don't think they should be exempt from any criticism and do agree with you that it's in their own best interest to serve their users well, especially since they ultimately make money based on having a lot of people use their service.