Background
My girlfriend had been a happy customer of the Carphone Warehouse for a couple of years. In October of this year she lost her phone on a night out. She reported it within minutes and made an insurance claim the next day.
The problem
The Carphone Warehouse system had not updated her account the last time she upgraded meaning her old phone was covered, but not her new phone. As you can imagine this was a major problem. After phone calls to the customer service team it was obvious that we were getting nowhere and it was certainly a case of “computer says” no.
The method
Becoming increasingly annoyed I used my Twitter account to vent my concerns www.twitter.com/matthewphelan
“Who is worse, Carphone warehouse Or BT ? A very tough one to call (excuse the pun)”
9:55 AM Oct 17th from TweetDeck
The reply
@Matthewphelan hi I wrk for Carphone Warehouse. Sorry about that. Email me details cpwcares@cpwplc.com and we’ll look into it on Monday.
11:46 AM Oct 17th from TweetDeck in reply to Matthewphelan
The result
14 days later the issue was resolved thanks to a customer service response delivered through Twitter. Although Guy couldn’t resolve the issue there and then I felt a lot better that someone was actually dealing with my issue. It did take longer than I would have wanted but this was a complicated issue and I thank the team for sorting it out.
Conclusion
I do get frustrated with poor customer service but if I know that someone is trying to help me I am more likely to be patient. Twitter gives companies an opportunity to address negative attitudes towards their brand and turn it into a positive. Ignoring negative content on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter can be a dangerous strategy.
If you want to find out how social media can help your search engine marketing then please go to http://www.4psmarketing.com/social-media.html
Tags: Twitter
