Using Twitter for fun and profit
Twitter is a great tool for keeping in touch with friends. I find that it's much more useful than Facebook for staying updated with what everyone is up to. Not all of my friends use Twitter yet, but I feel like I'm better versed in what my friends are doing when they're using Twitter at least semi-frequently. I believe that part of the reason for this is that Twitter makes it incredibly quick and easy to spew your thoughts to the collective. Not only is Twitter easy, but it forces you to be concise which then spurs more frequent updates. I definitely find that I'm more likely to Tweet a bunch of things throughout the day than I am to spend to time to write out a blog post like this one. This means that I'm putting more thoughts out there and talking about more things that I'm doing, thus keeping my followers tighter in the loop.
Not only has Twitter been great for keeping up with my friends, but I've had great luck with giving and receiving customer service through it. I've spent a bit of time answering questions related to my job, and I've also asked my share of questions to companies, services, and developers for things that I buy or use. Both have proven to be extremely efficient and useful.
My first customer support experiences with Twitter involved Time Warner Cable responding to complaints that I had about their service. I originally received support from an executive via Twitter and then later received a call from the Office of the President later that day to ensure that I was receiving the assistance I needed. While they were ultimately unable to resolve my issue due to issues out of their direct control, it was incredibly easy for people of power and authority to provide me with a level of support that I've never been able to obtain through their traditional support channels.
Just yesterday I had a question about my phone service with AT&T. My mother is thinking of coming on my family plan so that she can get an iPhone and not have to pay for her own separate plan. Both my wife and I have iPhones on AT&T and having her just jump on with us makes most sense. I wasn't sure how many lines of service I could have on my line and there was an issue with the ordering process through their website, so I tweeted @ATTCustomerCare and asked for help. I was asked to provide my phone number and then received a call shortly thereafter with an answer to my question and a fix for the issue that I was experiencing. I already get business care customer service over the phone, but the person I spoke with (@ATTJohnathon) was extremely nice, professional, and helpful. His Twitter profile says he's a manager and has been with AT&T for 10 years. It definitely showed.
Not only does helping customers via Twitter likely save money and make the customer happier, it can also offer free user-driven PR for companies that use it. Even though the customer is likely complaining or having issues with whatever service they're tweeting about, Twitter gives the company, provider, whatever, a way to publicly address and resolve the issue with the customer. Instead of people just seeing the complaint from a user, they are now also able to read the other side of the story or at least see that the other side is working to make things right.
I hope that more companies embrace Twitter like Time Warner Cable and AT&T have. It's probably scary for bigger companies to put out a public face that interacts directly with customers as opposed to continuing to have things fielded through their normal support methods, but the potential benefit far outweighs any negative that there may be. As far as I can see, there's only good that can come from publicly addressing issues mentioned on Twitter but I can definitely understand why it may be hard to take the plunge of, essentially, confirming problems these issues to the world. I'd much rather see a company like AT&T responding to complaints made through Twitter than having users complain with no word from them at all, though.
Not only has Twitter been great for keeping up with my friends, but I've had great luck with giving and receiving customer service through it. I've spent a bit of time answering questions related to my job, and I've also asked my share of questions to companies, services, and developers for things that I buy or use. Both have proven to be extremely efficient and useful.
My first customer support experiences with Twitter involved Time Warner Cable responding to complaints that I had about their service. I originally received support from an executive via Twitter and then later received a call from the Office of the President later that day to ensure that I was receiving the assistance I needed. While they were ultimately unable to resolve my issue due to issues out of their direct control, it was incredibly easy for people of power and authority to provide me with a level of support that I've never been able to obtain through their traditional support channels.
Just yesterday I had a question about my phone service with AT&T. My mother is thinking of coming on my family plan so that she can get an iPhone and not have to pay for her own separate plan. Both my wife and I have iPhones on AT&T and having her just jump on with us makes most sense. I wasn't sure how many lines of service I could have on my line and there was an issue with the ordering process through their website, so I tweeted @ATTCustomerCare and asked for help. I was asked to provide my phone number and then received a call shortly thereafter with an answer to my question and a fix for the issue that I was experiencing. I already get business care customer service over the phone, but the person I spoke with (@ATTJohnathon) was extremely nice, professional, and helpful. His Twitter profile says he's a manager and has been with AT&T for 10 years. It definitely showed.
Not only does helping customers via Twitter likely save money and make the customer happier, it can also offer free user-driven PR for companies that use it. Even though the customer is likely complaining or having issues with whatever service they're tweeting about, Twitter gives the company, provider, whatever, a way to publicly address and resolve the issue with the customer. Instead of people just seeing the complaint from a user, they are now also able to read the other side of the story or at least see that the other side is working to make things right.
I hope that more companies embrace Twitter like Time Warner Cable and AT&T have. It's probably scary for bigger companies to put out a public face that interacts directly with customers as opposed to continuing to have things fielded through their normal support methods, but the potential benefit far outweighs any negative that there may be. As far as I can see, there's only good that can come from publicly addressing issues mentioned on Twitter but I can definitely understand why it may be hard to take the plunge of, essentially, confirming problems these issues to the world. I'd much rather see a company like AT&T responding to complaints made through Twitter than having users complain with no word from them at all, though.
Comments