I recently read a post by Scott Monty called “Are You Really Satisfying Your Customers?” Very interesting points and examples but one of them caught my eye since we definitely did not share the same opinion.

He wrote “Comcast is the shining example of customer service on Twitter, led primarily through the efforts of the head of their digital team, Frank Eliason (aka @comcastcares on Twitter).” And I cannot say that he is wrong about this or not, perhaps they do help a lot of their customers though Twitter. However what I do know is that this opinion I had after numerous issues with their call-in customer service.

When I moved into my new apartment in Arlington it took about four weeks of trouble, non-working hardware and hours on the phone etc. before my roommates and I finally had a working cable and internet connection. Perhaps I should just have tweeted and then it would have worked? But how could I? I had no internet. Comcast provides internet connections and more so how does the twitter account help me when I don’t have internet. (Or a smartphone)

What I realized from Scotts comment and my experience is that it does not matter how great the customer care is trough twitter if it does not work on the phone as well. Sure the endorsements from the success will spread, but the complaints about the problems will sound higher.

Thus don’t forget to improve the old ways of providing customer care etc, just because you find new ways that is better for you. Before customers know about the new ways, they will still use the old.