Twitter Karma… Everybody is listening to the conversation

Recently I had a personal issue with my a certain insurance company that has a duck for a mascot. (hint, hint) I was upset and felt really used by the company, so much so that I had a little rant about it on Twitter. I was not expecting much, but I had heard that these big company’s are getting into social media in a big way and that they might be listening in to the conversation in Twitter and other social media outlets like facebook and digg.

Being that I am in advertising and the fact that I did have a compelling and real issue that I felt they should have been more attentive to, I thought, why not see if it is true. Is social media the new way to reach customer service?

At Archer Communications we talk about social media to our clients all the time, and sometimes they do not understand the power of this medium. They often ask us about the ROI, how much is my company going to get out of it, if it is really necessary, and the big question…who’s going to do this? I understand their concerns and believe me, before this experience I was asking those same questions myself. So, as a curious consumer, a proponent of social media, and a detective, I decided to tweet about my issue.

I didn’t know what to expect after my 10 or so 250 character entries. In each of them I mentioned the company by name, over and over again. I was upset and I talked about it. You could say I did a bit of a rant. Well. Tell you what. It didn’t take long at all. I was surprised to have a company representative tweet me about 1 hour after my last post. She was very nice and asked me to tweet her directly the problem with my account. For those of you that don’t use Twitter a lot, you can actually tweet privately to anyone. This means the tweet is not public like the regular tweets out there. You can send private messages to an actual Tweeter account holder and only they can see it. Not only that, but I do have my private tweets sent directly to my phone… and that’s how I found out the rep had sent me a tweet! My phone received a text message from the rep. I was completely dumbstruck. THEY ARE LISTENING! (I know, a little creepy) But, they really ARE listening!

Well, I answered their tweet with a one-on-one “tweet-conversation” with the rep. I told the rep what my problem was and why I was so upset. She said she would look into it. Again, I was not expecting much and to my surprise, I received a call the next day from another representative asking me a few more details about what had happened. They had decided to look into my case again and they would let me know the outcome. In a couple or more days, I received another call with their decision to reimburse me for my claim. Yesterday, I got my check. YAY! I was not only surprised and happy but I also remained with the company as a client.

It goes to show you that the ability of this company to be in touch with social media, actually brings them ROI in a much direct manner that most people dismiss. Word-of-mouth. Actually it is more like “tweet-of-mouth”, (or “digital-word”? or “type-a-tweet”? “Twordeeted”! hmm… there is a new term in there but I can’t put my finger on it. Lol!) which has become the new customer service in my book. They actually retained a client by their diligent use of social media, and they used it to their advantage. Bravo for them!

I do realize that this is a large company with lots of people working for them and the financial ability to have employees monitor their social media 24/7. But there is help out there for the smaller businesses to get on the bandwagon too! There are programs sold out there like Radian6 or Scout Labs that for a fee they can help you gauge your internet exposure and how it is being received. You can know when someone anywhere on the web is talking about you. There are also a number of free services like Google Alerts that sends you an email whenever you are mentioned on the web, know if they are talking good about you or bad about you with Co.mments and you can search community forums or message boards for your company to see where it is being mentioned by using Boardtracker. Andy Beal goes through these services and lists 26 free online reputation tools on his post for Marketing Pilgrim.

As you can see what happened with me and that duck company was not magic (although it sure felt like it). They didn’t read my mind or were looking at me like “big brother”. They just had their finger on the pulse of their brand, they were ready to jump in to protect their integrity and fix the problem. That’s insight, and that is a smart business move… plus, they retained me as a client which is the best ROI of all! ;-D

By: Michelle Martorell
Creative Director, Archer Communications, Inc.