People are talking about you . . . are you talking back?
Last winter I complained on Twitter about my blog service, which was taking ages to get back to me on a bug request. I had e-mailed and e-mailed . . . and e-mailed. However, I sent one tweet with the company’s name on it–and that’s all it took. My tweet went something like this:
“Typepad is slaying me! I have had a bug in my admin for weeks–no progress!”
Typepad’s customer service might have been backlogged, but it had someone dedicated to monitoring social networks, and she resolved my issue within the hour. All of the sudden, I received an e-mail with the subject line: “Typepad Woes?” The body read:
Hi Rachael:
I saw your Tweet about having trouble with TypePad. I’m taking a look
through your tickets now–I’ll work on escalating this and see if there
isn’t something more I can do from my side to get you posting again!
–
Ginevra Whalen
TypePad Community Manager
Six Apart
And escalate she did. I was able to post within the hour. Typepad and Ginevra did a couple of things right, and good things followed:
- It has someone monitoring the networks and engaging with the community.
- Ginevra stepped in, followed through and actually did something that helped me.
- The tone of the conversation about Typepad and my experience with the company changed. I went from being disgruntled and ready to shut down the blog and leave (I had been e-mailing about the bug for three weeks) to impressed and excited about how it effectively used social media for customer service.
Another company that shines for its customer service via Twitter is Comcast. To read more about what it is doing and how @comcastcares has been an effective way for the company to help customers, check out this recent blog post from the Wall Street Journal Digits blog.
Sad example of a missed opportunity:
I heart my milkman. But in a very upstanding way. 
Once a week, the cooler on my porch is full of fresh milk and fresh-pressed apple juice, and sometimes the poor man has to drag groceries up my long and windy stairs, too. One very early morning I was up feeding the baby, and looked out the window to see my poor milkman hunting around my yard for the cooler that my kids had hidden. He found it, returned it to the right place and filled it. Just a little thing, but I was impressed. I wanted to tweet about it. I searched on Twitter for his company–it was not participating. But people were talking about his company on Twitter–good and bad. Unfortunately, the conversation was one-sided.
If you have a business, you can’t afford not to monitor and engage the social networks your customers are using. Whether you are a blog service or the local dairy with a delivery service, people are talking about you . . . are you talking back?
This entry was posted on Sunday, June 7th, 2009 at 10:31 pm and is filed under Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.3 Responses to “Customer Service via Twitter”
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June 9th, 2009 at 11:28 am
thanks so much for the write-up! I’m glad that we’re a part of keeping customer service ahead of the game these days. Comcast and Zappo’s do a great job with their social media strategy.
One that I find interesting is how local businesses can use Twitter too. I follow some small restaurants and shops here in the Bay Area to stay updated on menus/special events/classes, and it’s a great way to sort of pollinate a brand without being overly sales-y.
Again - glad we could help, and give a shout if there’s ever anything else I can do.
June 10th, 2009 at 8:35 am
Help, I’m Twitter-challenged!! I have an exciting new interior design business and think it would be a great tool. Any advise as to getting started? Thanks!
June 27th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
I did not realize businesses like Comcast used Twitter.
I thought that it was more for social networking between friends and family.
Thanks.for the article!