Twitter Changes the Customer Service Paradigm
June 20, 2008 by Brad Shorr
Filed under Customer Service
Image via WikipediaOh, how I hate to use the word “paradigm”, but … Customer service media include phone, email, chat rooms, blogs … and now Twitter. Only with Twitter, the customer service experience is upside down.
A few days ago my Twitter pal Kim put out a Tweet asking if anyone besides her was having trouble logging on to MyBlogLog. It so happened I was having the same issue, so I Tweeted back to confirm.
Several hours later I received a Twitter reply from @mblsupport, apologizing for the service breakdown and reporting it had been fixed.
Wow. My first reaction was, this is unexpected. I can’t believe MyBlogLog was listening, and that they took the time to respond. My second reaction was, I don’t really know if I like a company monitoring my Twitter conversations. My third reaction was, hey, if that’s the way I feel, what am I doing on Twitter in the first place?
This is just one example among many of Twitter’s ability to function as a customer service platform. @mblsupport hasn’t worked out all the kinks –
1. Although Kim sent out the initial Tweet, she did not get a response from @mblsupport. It might because she referenced “MyBlogLog” and my reply referenced “Yahoo”. But the name on the Twitter account is MyBlogLog Support. Go figure.
2. The @mblsupport response came several hours after our exchange. I already knew the problem had been fixed, and hours earlier at that.
But being a new concept, I’m sure willing to make allowances. For all I know, noise on Twitter might be how MBL figured out they had a server problem in the first place.
The point is, Twitter makes customer service proactive rather than reactive. No more waiting for the phones to ring or blog comments to appear. Companies can go out and find customer service issues in real time and hopefully, possibly, nip them in the bud.
Does this sound like a major plus to you, or is proactive customer care too intrusive?
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Hey, I’d love to be able to tweet about a challenge I’m having with X company and have them respond! That means they’re taking customer support seriously. I agree - it will change the *ahem* paradigm, all right. It might even become a badge of quality; if a customer is willing to go this extra mile, then they must really care about what we think, you know?
Sounds like fodder for a marketing campaign to me! Or, for that matter, a politician…
Robert, won’t be long before politicians are using Twitter (maybe they are already). Obama has been remarkably successful online, and others are sure to follow.
I like the idea of proactive customer service. Companies have been monitoring our online conversations for a long time but I love that they are now using that to help solve problems. @heathergardner tweeted a problem her parents were having with Comcast (the service was out for a week) and Comcast responded by getting it fixed in a day. I dumped Comcast several months ago but I am impressed that they are using Twitter in this way.