Comcast Cares?

One of the most frequently cited success stories in Social Media is the case of Comcast responding to customer complaints via Twitter. Comcast is now famous for handling and responding to the many customer complaints that people tweet about daily on Twitter.  Certainly  it’s great to use Twitter as a new, immediate, alternate channel of customer service communications.

But while it is great to be responsive to customers, engage and listen and learn from what they are saying, the large volume of communications and downright angry rants also point to some glaring customer service issues at Comcast that will never be solved by Social Media.

Do The Right Thing – But Only When People Are Looking?

Putting a positive spin on a complaint and resolving it quickly and responsively is what all winning companies do – but why should a customer have to resort to publicly challenging and humiliating Comcast before their complaint or question can be resolved? This points to a fundamental problem in the customer service  function and likely to issues with  the service or product itself.

Is Comcast actually changing the way they serve their customers based on the feedback – or are they merely doing good PR by handling public, highly-visible complaints with a fast, courteous response, while the rest of their customers are sitting on hold listening to the endless easy-listening loop?

It’s Easy to Pay Someone to Tweet All Day – It’s Hard to Make the Real, Tough Changes to Improve Your Business

The real value of Social Media to a business is not so much about how they look to the world on Twitter, it is really about actually providing better service and making their customers happy by listening and engaging with them – and changing the way they do business based on their feedback. Good Social Media can’t substitute for poor service for very long. However, changing the way you provide service and respond to customers is much harder than simply addressing the public challenges as they arise. But it is the only way to long-term success in the Social Media age.

If Comcast customers were happy with their service and could get a response to their issues resolved quickly and efficiently through Comcast’s customer service channels, they wouldn’t feel the need to publicly challenge the company in Social Media. And Comcast could focus their Social Media efforts around building a community and engaging with their customers instead of putting out the fires with a dose of good PR spin.

Don’t Just Look Good – Be Good

In short, the real winners in Social Media are organizations that want to actually be good and provide good service, not just look good in public while continuing to provide lousy customer service. Social Media is the ultimate word-of-mouth conduit, and the ultimate winning strategy is simply to treat all of your customers as if your very livelihood depended upon them – because it does.

For more on Comcasts Twitter Approach:  Comcast’s Twitter Man – BusinessWeek – http://ow.ly/1bYEg

Paul Kiesewetter is the founder of Right Place Marketing.