The Epic Way Burger King Just Trolled McDonald's On Facebook
You have to wonder whether restaurant chains actually enjoy handling customer complaints on social media. It's so easy to vent on Facebook or Twitter if your fast food order doesn't turn out exactly as you expected. You can imagine a McDonald's customer service representative rolling their eyes as they read one of the many online complaints the chain undoubtedly receives every day. Maybe those reps are really wishing they could say, "Oh no, your Big Mac was missing part of its bun? You should be thanking us for helping you avoid some empty calories." and then think better of it and leave the complaint unanswered. Or maybe McDonald's simply receives so many complaints it doesn't have the resources to even see them all, much less respond. In any case, Burger King in Denmark has decided to step in and help an "old friend" by answering all the Facebook complaints from McDonald's customers and posting a one-minute video about this trolling campaign to their own Facebook page.
According to AdWeek, Burger King employees worked their way through thousands of complaints on McDonald's Facebook page, responding with sympathy and a digital coupon for a Burger King Whopper. The outlet says that this campaign is just the latest strike in Burger King's long-term strategy to directly attack its biggest competitor. Of course, Burger King customers complain too. So as another part of the campaign, Burger King is pledging to respond to all of its own Facebook comments within 48 hours. Hmm... does this give McDonald's an opportunity to troll back?
This is just Burger King's latest attempt to troll McDonald's
It remains to be seen whether McDonald's has a response to this most recent brazen attempt to lure away its customers with free Whoppers. Meanwhile, Burger King says they're just having fun and not trying to be mean with these repeated jabs at their fast food rival. (AdWeek states that the playful ribbing initially began back in 2015, after McDonald's declined BK's offer to join forces and create a "McWhopper" to celebrate International Peace Day.)
It appears that airing your grievances online does work, even without competing chain's marketing stunts. According to ZD Net, a recent study has shown that when social media users complain about a business, their target is most frequently a chain restaurant. The study states that about a third of the complainers received a public apology or special offer from the business, and even more got those types of responses sent in a private message. But if an unhappy customer really wants satisfaction? Well, they should complain via Twitter. The study said Twitter users were more likely to get same-day responses than people who post to Facebook. So who knows? Maybe McDonald's has been keeping these matters private by DMing all of their unhappy customers apologies and discount codes this whole time.
Even if this is true and McDonald's has already treated their bun-deprived customer to a free Big Mac, we're sure that person probably didn't mind receiving a free Whopper as well.