Customer Service and Reputation Management the Twitter Way: A Case Study

SEO digest

Last year I bought Comcast's NBA League Pass, which gave me access to the entire season of NBA basketball games. My brother egged me on to order it so he could use my online login and watch streaming games at home in Michigan (his cable provider didn't offer League Pass). A couple weeks ago I received a letter from Comcast informing me that they've auto-renewed me for NBA League Pass this year and that if I don't want to renew I'd have to cancel. I asked my brother if he wanted it again this year and he said that he didn't really want to shell out the money for it, so I could go ahead and cancel it if I wasn't going to use it.
About a week and a half ago I called Comcast to cancel League Pass. The lovely automated voice informed me that "Current...wait time...is...forty...five...minutes." Not wanting to listen to smooth jazz for 3/4 of an hour, I hung up. A few days later I called again to cancel. The office was closed. No big deal, I'd just call again later. On Monday I got into work and called Comcast a third time. After 20 minutes of easy listening, I finally got through.


While cradling the phone against my shoulder and reading through YOUmoz entries, I casually explained to the Comcast rep that I wanted to cancel League Pass this year since I wasn't going to use it. She put me on hold so she could pull up my account. After a few minutes she came back and cheerfully informed me that I couldn't cancel my subscription since the NBA season had already started. I was confused. Since the season started four days ago I was no longer able to cancel 8 months of games that I wasn't going to watch?

My coworkers couldn't help but listen as my conversation with the Comcast rep grew more heated and my voice carried across the office. I told her that this is ridiculous and that I wasn't going to pay $170 for a whole season of games I wasn't going to watch, simply because I was late in canceling by 4 days. I told her how I tried calling twice before but couldn't get through, and I asked if she could at least prorate the return. She said that she was unable to cancel and that the subscription was setup like an On-Demand movie. "If you order a movie On-Demand, you can't cancel it halfway through the movie and get a refund." I told her that's not a valid analogy because she's comparing one movie to an 80+ game season. Nonetheless, she wouldn't budge. I repeatedly asked to speak to a supervisor and she said that one wasn't available. She promised that she'd have one call me back later (nobody did) and happily asked if there was anything else she could do for me. I said "Obviously not," hung up the phone, and peppered the office air with a combination of "Comcast" and various expletives.

While I had been chatting with Not At All Helpful Comcast Rep on the phone, I happened to Twitter the following: 

To my surprise, after I hung up and was gearing up to unleash some major Comcast hate all over the Internet, I received this response:

I responded to ComcastBill in 3 tweets, relaying what happened within the confines of 140 characters. Meanwhile, a number of my Twitter buddies rallied in support of my cause:

The above screenshot is a list of tweets that mention SEOmoz. After analyzing what people are saying I'm already able to identify various action points:

1. Someone asked if our tools are worth the steep price. We can reach out to this person and provide him with some information about our tools and maybe even offer him a free trial.
2. Another person commented that our Events Calendar has been discontinued and is bummed because he really liked that feature. Knowing that a number of people enjoyed using the Events Calendar is really valuable because it prompts us to reconsider the Events Calendar and brainstorm whether or not we should reinstate it and think of ways to improve it.
3. Someone shared the link to his first YOUmoz post. Here we could reach out to our YOUmoz authors and thank them for their contributions, which will hopefully encourage them to keep contributing. The same goes for Marketplace additions--we should thank people for creating new profiles.
4. Below the screenshot fold someone commented that he found some SEOmoz links pointing to malware. Because someone has identified these for us, we can take immediate action and remove them.
5. Also under the fold is a request to add a "skip to content" link for mobile users. Website feedback is great and should definitely be considered.
6. Someone else asked about our Pubcon party and was wondering what time it started. Here we can helpfully provide answers. :)

Just by looking at the first page of Twitter results for "SEOmoz" I was able to identify half a dozen customer service action points. By keeping active and aware of our brand mentions, we should be able to go above and beyond with customer service, site improvements, and user engagement. Comcast showed me that being active on Twitter serves a great business purpose as well as provides personal entertainment. I've learned a valuable lesson and will try to be a more active brand evangelist on Twitter in the future.

What about  you guys? Do you use Twitter to monitor your brand and provide customer service, or do you have any experience engaging in a conversation with a brand evangelist or customer service rep for another company?

www.seomoz.org

published @ November 7, 2008