Amazon is using warehouse employees on Twitter to try and fix its public image

[Greg S]

In brief: In a not quite so grassroots fashion, Amazon has promoted several warehouse workers to be advocates on Twitter to talk about positive working conditions. Amazon's ongoing public image problem about poor treatment of warehouse employees does not appear to be getting much better as a result of the efforts made.

Several Amazon warehouse workers have been promoted to hold the title of FC ambassador. Instead of performing pick and place tasks as well as packaging up shipments, the ambassadors provide facility tours and are effectively public relations personnel on social media.

A total of 16 Twitter accounts have been identified as belonging to Amazon FC ambassadors. These employees have responded to numerous tweets that mention negative working conditions at Amazon with overtly positive messages.

Natalie, I am a fulfillment center employee. I have so many things to be thankful for because I chose to accept a job with Amazon. Seeing how everything comes together for a customer order is spectacular, and I am in awe of the whole process.

— Michelle - Amazon FC Ambassador (@AmazonFCMichele) August 22, 2018

All of the Twitter accounts are said to be run by human employees and are not using bots to automatically generate responses. Most of the accounts identified have only been in existence for a few weeks. However, given that many tweets share similar punctuation and writing style, it is evident that there must be some amount of canned responses or at the very least strict guidelines for responding.

Despite trying to fix a public image problem, the attempt appears to be largely unsuccessful. A number of Twitter users have added the FC ambassador titles to their bios and have started responding with sarcastic messages that mock those of real Amazon employees.

Phew After a hard Day's work there's nothing like heading out through the anti-theft security gates to go to the bathroom before starting another hard day's work on my second shift. So blessed y'all! Some people don't even have one job and Lord Bezos lets me have two!

— Amy - Amazon FC Ambassador (@fc_ambassador) August 24, 2018

In this case, Amazon is not trying to hide the fact that many of its employees are advocating for them on Twitter. All accounts have clearly tweeted out that they are indeed employees working for Amazon and have names that also make this fact clear. Transparency is evident and a good choice in this case, but Amazon may need to go back to the drawing board in order to fix its public perception problem.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/76124-amazon-using-warehouse-employees-twitter-try-fix-public.html

 

[wiyosaya]

Stuff like this never ceases to amaze me. As I see it, this is not unlike fakebook rating users or telling users that their profiles are deleted when the user deletes them or gagme saying that they are not tracking you when they really are. This is pure PR bullcrap that I am sure some will buy, but I see this for what it is PR bullcrap.

 

[Satish Mallya]

The obvious solution is to make the jobs less crappy. You wouldn't need to AstroTurf if you had legitimate employees happy with their jobs

 

[p51d007]

Hey! Here's an idea!!!
If the job is THAT crappy...QUIT! Go find another job somewhere else, where the working conditions are better. It's a WAREHOUSE job. Most of this outrage about the working conditions, is just a vain attempt by the unions, to garner favor, to unionize the entire Amazon system, which would in effect, kill it.
Don't like a job? QUIT. Oh, what's that? You are in your late 20's or older, and the ONLY job you are "qualified" for is a warehouse job or minimum wage? Who's fault is that?

 

[toooooot]

Hey! Here's an idea!!!
If the job is THAT crappy...QUIT! Go find another job somewhere else, where the working conditions are better. It's a WAREHOUSE job. Most of this outrage about the working conditions, is just a vain attempt by the unions, to garner favor, to unionize the entire Amazon system, which would in effect, kill it.
Don't like a job? QUIT. Oh, what's that? You are in your late 20's or older, and the ONLY job you are "qualified" for is a warehouse job or minimum wage? Who's fault is that?

Who's fault? Expensive education system for once. Unwillingness to get in deep debt is another reason. This was partially my problem although there was much more and I am not even trying to blame anyone. You gotta treat your workers with respect above all. Again and again, go through history and see what angry "slaves" do to their heartless greedy masters. So those problem amazon had, they should solve them, not by lies but improving their workers condition.

 

[Uncle Al]

What a laugh ..... there are a long list of catalog order businesses that tried the same thing during their demise. The only thing that can fix Amazon is to quit wittleing away at the quality and the employee's. Of course, what can you expect from a company that's owners name sounds a bit too similar to a famous clown out of Chicago ...... at least HE could make people laugh .....

 

[senketsu]

..your employees become a paid propaganda shill for your company because they need to make up for the sh!tty pay
amazon can't sink much lower