Social Media Hot Tub

It’s far too easy to pick on the companies shooting themselves in the foot with their social media-based customer service efforts. I almost started to feel a little sorry for Sprint yesterday, after I received this tweet from Rich Pesce, the company’s social media boss:

Had I been too harsh? Well, no. I’m a customer, and have been for a long time. A customer deserves to act like a shareholder, even more so – because, after all, we’re not garnering the benefits of owning a chunk in the company and when we’re not even benefiting from the product, we’re just left with our pockets hanging out.

Another nation heard from

I absolve myself of any consumer activist guilt; but the Hot Tub is supposed to be a conversation. It can’t be that without a survey sample that includes the good with the bad. So the question bubbled up: Who’s doing it right? I thought of @comcastcares. Already, it’s a win. Because whether or not this famed “Comcast Twitter guy” lives up to the hype or not, he’s managed to entwine the company’s brand image in with an online presence of heroic repute.

The difference is immediately discernable. @comcastcares is a guy, not an logo. Oh, and he has a name. It’s Frank. I tweeted this morning, on my quest for the online customer service holy grail:

@comcastcares what is the secret to delivering #customerservice by #socialmedia? Why do you guys do it better than some other big cos?

His reply:

Just as I suspected.  Frank Eliason and I corresponded by email about how the Hot Tub’s readers could benefit from his team’s example. He indicated we couldn’t do better than to run his interview with Guy Kawasaki, which ran in the American Express Open Forum earlier this month.

My blog’s tagline is “Aren’t we all just fat men in a tub?” It’s true, but it helps us get in better shape when we can learn from all kinds of examples, good and bad.

This is the original unedited text from Kawasaki’s interview. Enjoy, then in the comments tell us who YOU think is doing it right.

To Tweet and to Serve

Question: How did you get started on Twitter?

Answer:  I started as a Customer Service manager with Comcast September, 2007.  On my fourth day our communications team asked if a member of my team could contact a blogger.  We did, and they were thrilled.  It is amazing the reaction you get when you call a blogger.  People blog to be heard, and when they know someone is listening they are very excited.  We used Google Blogsearch and did this to others over the next few months.  Based on the success we were seeing, I was asked to do more community efforts.  In February, 2008 I became Manager of Digital Care, responsible for Customer interactions on our help forums, other forums on the net and blogs.  I started a newsletter to share the Customer story (social media is a great place for Voice of the Customer).  A VP, Scott Westerman, wrote to me because he loved the newsletter.  He told me to check out Twitter.  Like most people, when I looked at Twitter I was not sure what to think of it, but I saw value, especially due to the real time search.

Question: Exactly how do you use Twitter? (ie, are you searching for “Comcast”? Or “comcast OR Directtv”? what’s only respond to @s? Only respond to Directs?)

Answer:  We use Twitter to help Customers.  We simply search Comcast (and a few variations, that I will leave off here) and respond offering help.  One of my favorite stories involving competitors, is on this post:

http://pistachioconsulting.com/twitter-competition-verizon-comcast/

We do not strive to say things about a competitor, but sometimes they come into our search.  For this one he was having trouble with his box.  Since we use similar hardware, so I provided a way to fix it.  In the end he returned as a Customer.  With everything I have done in social media, this is probably my favorite quote “Eliason initially refrained from lobbying for Kerkvliet’s business, instead offering pointers on how to get his Verizon service working properly. This gesture floored the physician.”

Question: What Twitter tools do you use? (on a computer, phone, iPad, whatever)

Answer:  The best part to social media is there are plenty of tools that you can work with, and many are free.  If you are thinking of listening, you can easily start with Google Blogsearch, Twitter Search and Facebook Search.  You can then progress to some really great tools.  For analysis we use Radian 6 and Nielsen Online, but for day to day work we do use many free tools.  We use Seesmic, Peoplebrowsr, or sometimes the tools listed above.  On my iPhone I prefer Simply Tweet, but I like Seesmic on my Droid.  On the iPad I use Twitterrific.

Question: How many cases do you deal with every day?

Answer:  My digital care team is not structured around number of interactions, but instead how they help us improve the customer experience through all communication channels. The bulk of the work that we handle is actually through email. As a means to obtain account information from customers on blogs, we started our team’s email address (We_Can_Help@cable.comcast.com). We do also use it in other social media spaces as necessary (for example when a customer needs more than 140 characters). This creates another communications channel in which we receive about 7,000 emails a month.

My team is responsible for our help forums, which have over 3.5 million page views each month. These are usually people seeking helping from peers. My team moderates our help forums. We also listen in forums throughout the Internet. We even have a private forum called Comcast Direct over at Broadband Reports. This allows Customers that hang out there to get help in a private manner where they already are. Forums in general are about peer helping peer, so typically you will not see us participate in a public manner. Doing so would take away from the community that is there. We will private message if we think we are the best option to help. With all the forums we watch, we review 500 to 1,000 forum entries each day.

We review about 6,000 blog posts each day, with most not having anything to do with Comcast. They show in the search because the blogger has a Comcast.net email address.  We do not exclude them from our search, because we would never want to miss a post in which a customer could use assistance.

Twitter has about 1,500 – 2,000 tweets a day or more. Many of the tweets are not about assistance, but some are. We reach out to 600 – 1,000 people, and we have conversations with about 200 – 300 a day.  We typically only have 1 person on at a time, and we try to cover 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. Eastern time Monday through Friday and 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern time on Saturday and Sunday. We see more activity than most companies since we are known for being in the space and spammers like to mention us. Many times when we feel it is spam, our initial response is to email. We know we never hear from them.

Question:  Are your Twitter efforts now your full-time occupation?

Answer:  I am responsible for our community efforts, which include Twitter.  I also manage a number of Customer Feedback channels for Comcast.  As Senior Director of National Customer Service I manage 3 teams for the company, and, as everyone in Customer Service, I act as the advocate for all our Customers.

Question: Do you use ghosts or staff or is it pure Frank?

Answer:  Every tweet from @ComcastCares is me, but I am not out there as much as I used to be.  When we started on Twitter I was out there all hours of the day and night, usually 7 days a week.  Today we have 10 different Twitter ID’s.  Different than many companies, I believe that each ID should represent a person.  I relate this to calls.  You would never answer a phone ‘XYZ company, what do you want?’ So we have team members with ID’s like @Comcastbill and @Comcastbonnie responding to our Customers, including those who tweet me.  I do enjoy being out there, so I Tweet also.  Another difference is I recommend tweeting about other things too.  So we will tweet what we are doing, or interesting information we find.

Question: Does your experience prove that one person on Twitter can make a big impact on a company’s reputation?

Answer:  I think a person, a team, and a website can make all the difference.  Here is a video of Brian Roberts speaking to John Battelle at Web 2.0 this year:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5q4n9iA2JG4

Question: If Twitter didn’t exist, would, and how would, Comcast resolve the issues that you’re handling with Twitter?

Answer:  We still use the standard communication channels, but I would still have been involved in digital media.  It is a great place to listen to and learn from Customers.

Question: What are the key elements and best practices of providing support via Twitter?

Answer: The key to Twitter is being yourself.  Ultimately the way used by every business will be slightly different for everyone.  If you are a small business, you may be using search to connect with people that may be Customers in the future.  I recommend not doing the hard sell, but instead being the expert and offering assistance.  Allow your background (Twitter page) to do the selling.  For companies like Comcast where Customers may be talking, the key is not jumping into conversation.  If we see someone needs help, we usually do not jump in with the answer.  We might send a tweet that say ‘Can I help?’  What we are doing is throwing the ball in their court.  If they want help, they will come back.  No matter how you choose to use social media, I do recommend listening in all the spaces.  It will help you better understand your Customers and further the relationship with them.

Question: What is the role of Facebook in providing support? Or is Twitter the best platform? Why?

Answer:  Facebook is a place to meet up with people you already know, where Twitter is the space to meet new friends.  This distinction is important, because the reaction when reaching out to people in both spaces will be very different.  Twitter it is much more expected.  Facebook recently opened up search to include status updates, so it acts a lot more like Twitter.  It is a great place to listen because of the size of the community and the limited amount of spam that is there.  We do reach out to people on Facebook, but it is not as often.  If you reach too much to people that you are not friends with, the system will warn or even block you as a spam prevention measure.

Connect with Frank on his blog http://timetobefrank.com or on Twitter http://twitter.com/comcastcares