Failing to bring all the boys to the yard.
Facepalm: A good social media account manager can improve the image of his employer through thoughtful interaction with clients. But there is a significant difference between a reasonable response to a sincere complaint and calling someone a “milkshake brain.” Unfortunately for EA, her Need for Speed account decided to throw the specified insult at the fan, which caused an apology from the company.
The official Need for Speed Twitter account has already received a lot of complaints and headlines due to hostile responses to users. But this approach has attracted a lot of attention to the last entry of the multi-year franchise before its launch on November 29.
However, it seems that the person controlling the account went too far when one fan complained about the early access policy to the game; those who pre-order Need for Speed Unbound: Palace Edition will receive early access for three days before the release of the racing game.
One person tweeted that paying more for access to the game three days earlier is exploitation, to which the account replied “cry about it, bro, or buy idc at the regular price,” before calling them “the brain of a milkshake.” After a user’s complaint about customer relations consisting of four sentences, the NFS account sent the following response: “I’m not reading all this, sorry what happened to you, or congratulations.” Oh!
The messages have since been deleted, which is not surprising. But they were captured by Dexterto.
— Dexerto (@Dexerto) November 23, 2022
The Need for Speed account tweeted that some of its social media responses “crossed the line.” As is always the case with public apologies, they are aimed at people who were “upset.”
The reaction to the apology was mixed. Some admit that the account went too far, while others say it was great to see people being “fried” by social media managers, and the whole incident was hilarious. There are also unconfirmed claims that the person behind the account has been fired.
We admit that we got a little carried away by the hype about the launch, and some of our recent social media responses crossed the line. To those fans we upset, we apologize. We will do better. See you here next week.
— Thirst for Speed (@NeedforSpeed) November 23, 2022
In fairness, it should be noted that official social media accounts often contain unfounded insults and threats. In these cases, a witty response and blocking the user is usually the best answer. But calling names will always be risky, and it’s not that the person in question is particularly hostile.
