> I wish more brands interacted with their audience in this human-like, friendly banter, playful sort of way
And I’m sure brands wish they could do it without fear of being misinterpreted and causing a litany of issues for what amounted to a well meaning joke. No one wants to be the social media person that causes trouble for the company (and thus themselves) for being a bit too friendly to an unreasonable entitled prick.
Heck, I’ve seen it happen (more than once) in a support forum context where someone is a regular and always treated respectfully and helped whenever they ask, but one day the support person is a tad more relaxed (read: less corporate, more open and personal) in their communication and the customer is offended out of left field. Which then becomes stressful for the support person and naturally causes them to clam up in future communications.
Yes, big companies definitely take it too far in their frustratingly sterile I’ll-restate-everything-you-said-and-repeat-your-name-over-and-over direction, but “human-like, friendly banter, playful” is incredibly risky and not worth the stress.