A few days ago I started having problems with my internet connection. Sometimes my internet would drop to unusable speeds and other times the internet would just disconnect all together. I knew Comcast was on twitter so I decided to tweet Frank Eliason (@comcastcares) on twitter and ask him for help.
After sending out this tweet Frank connected me with Bill (@comcastbill) who then took over.
At this point I told Bill that I am going out of town tomorrow and that the only available time I had was either this evening (Friday) or tomorrow morning (keep in mind my conversation with Bill was taking place in the afternoon on Friday). Bill said he could have someone at my place in a few hours.
To which I naturally replied:
My initial contact with Frank was a few days ago, but once my issue resurfaced (last night) I immediately contacted Bill and within 24 hours I had a tech at my door to fix the problem. Now for all of you at home trying to calculate the ROI on this, what’s the ROI of me tweeting out that “Comcast Rocks” to around 1,700 people and then writing a blog post a bout it that I will share with many more people? Comcast turned someone who could have potentially been a disgruntled customer (me) into someone who know sings praises about the company. So you tell me, can you afford to NOT be involved with social media?
If you want a case study for twitter, use Comcast (and this post). Frank and Bill are constantly monitoring the web listening for conversations and offering help where they can. Now imagine if Comcast didn’t have a social media presence, what would happen? Well I would probably have to get on the phone and wait on hold for 20 minutes while I bitch about my horrible experience and frustration.
Thanks to Twitter, communication is now instant. Without twitter this whole scenario would not have been possible. I was able to instantly communicate my experience to 1,700 people. For all of you out there who say “twitter is a waste of time,” well you tell me how big of a time waster it is the next time you’re on hold waiting for a customer service representative to answer your call. Twitter is literally changing how some companies do business.
I also have to give a lot of credit to Debbie (tech 930 in San Francisco) who was the tech that fixed the problem. All her tests revealed that my internet connection was just strong (as did many other test that Frank/Bill ran), however she decided to go outside to check something out. After looking into the hole where the wire was, she found a piece of metal that was touching the wire and thus shorting out and slowing down my connection. Needless to say, the problem is now fixed, thanks Comcast and thank you Debbie!
Thanks for reading!
Great success story!
Yep, same experience to the T with me, Frank, and Bill. There was an episode I had with my cable modem, Bill had sent a tech to my apartment within 3 hours. The tech was on her phone with a colleague, while I was tweeting with Bill. Ultimately, the tech in my apartment called Bill. Go figure.
And there are about a dozen people working with Frank and Bill, all with unique Twitter names, e.g. ComcastGeorge, and they all monitor references to Comcast and Comcastcares.
An interesting question – will Twitter become just another customer service channel? And if it does will it become as congested and ineffective as the traditional measures that some companies employ?
i think part of twitter will become a customer service channel, but it's an opt in system, meaning if i dont follow the customer support folks, i wont know about it.
i dont think it will become congested because we can filter who we wan to follow. i actually think that twitter will become even more valuable as a resource once companies begin utilizing it for support.
I had a problem with my computer and finally discovered it had to do with the internet. I called comcast and I got Cindy ID #100369825. I've got to admitt I'm not that good with computers, but she was patient with me and took me step for step through everything. We finally figured out it was my motem. I just want to thank her and let her supervisors know that she was a wonderful person who was patient with me and went above and beyond what her job entitles her to do. Please recognize her as a spiecal person who takes her job seriously and is great with public comunications. thank you
I had a problem with my computer and finally discovered it had to do with the internet. I called comcast and I got Cindy ID #100369825. I've got to admitt I'm not that good with computers, but she was patient with me and took me step for step through everything. We finally figured out it was my motem. I just want to thank her and let her supervisors know that she was a wonderful person who was patient with me and went above and beyond what her job entitles her to do. Please recognize her as a spiecal person who takes her job seriously and is great with public comunications. thank you