I doubt it somehow, but it is something that they will have to wake up to. Michael Arrington was writing on Techcrunch about problems with internet access firm Comcast. He was getting annoyed as we all do and started Twittering about it.For a tech firm monitoring Twitter seems like a no-brainer. Key word filtering allows people to track conversations with relevant words using Tweetscan. "Within 20 minutes of my first Twitter message I got a call from a Comcast executive in Philadelphia who wanted to know how he could help. He said he monitors Twitter and blogs to get an understanding of what people are saying about Comcast, and so he saw the discussion break out around my messages."The conversation related in Comcast sending out a team out to fix my connection and apologise. OK, it helps that he runs a well-known technology blog, no doubt about it, and it is more than likely that the person who first got in touch knew that, still it points the way forward "as an excellent early warning system to flag possible brand implosions". You really do have to watch those brand implosions, but he is right as Twitter is the pre-blog chatter. It is where people talk before maybe they go off and blog.Like now. Ben Ayers Twitted about this, I read it, responded and have blogged on Brand Republic. Bingo.Everyone knows how infuriating it is dealing with similar firms to Comcast in the UK, like my bete noir Virgin Media, which has the worst customer service in the history of the entire frakking world. Amoeba's had better customer contact centres, I swear to god.Comcast is not the only firm at it. Dell is using it and apparently has a few people monitoring it. There are others outside of the tech space. Southwest Airlines is doing things, using it to make announcements.
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Gordon Macmillan
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Member since: 03 Jun 2008
Last login: 26 Nov 2009
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