When Michael’s internet went down last month, he vented his frustration on Twitter. And lo and behold, Comcast actually saw his tweet, reached out to him, and proactively worked to solve his problem.
Comcast is unusual in its embrace of the Twittersphere, however, since it actually has someone dedicated to putting out fires there before they tarnish its brand too much. Not all companies have that level of savviness so Get Satisfaction, a network of customer support forums, has started to monitor Twitter for them.
Using Summize’s public APIs, Get Satisfaction now records all of the messages on Twitter that mention brands of supported companies. Did you just complain about your experience on eBay? Go here to see your message seeded as the start of a possible discussion thread.
The system’s meant to help companies respond to customer concerns on Twitter, since all followup messages on Get Satisfaction are tweeted back to the original tweeter. Its also meant to create a public dialog around these messages so that other customers can learn from their peers’ experiences. And since much Get Satisfaction is about customers helping customers, it provides a forum for them to do so in a more purposeful way.
Get Satisfaction is working on additional functionality that records all the tweets centered around an original tweet. So, in Michael’s Comcast case, the company and its other customers could have better tracked the public’s response to his ordeal.
Very cool launch. Congrats to the GetSatisfaction team!
How come techcrunch page load runs very slowly?
I have brand new compaq and DSL connection. I keep getting IE page error everytime I re-load techcrunch. Strange you have unknowing competitors fools chopping off your line and domain.
I think you have some sorta spies attacking you. I think…
Did you guys write something bad?
Just wondering… What cause this problem….
wow, this is cool, signs of things to come… hope they can filter the spam, it is really a great service, until it gets abused, or flooded …. i mean the big companies already know how to ignore their users, it will be no challenge for them to ignore this service … unless transparency increases the bottom line
@gregory – This is a move toward encouraging more companies to participate on Get Satisfaction and I think it’s brilliant. If Get Satisfaction can become the one place customer service reps need to go to communicate with their customers (or at least the primary place), the idea of engaging online becomes a much more manageable and less scary prospect. Transparency DOES increase the bottom line because it increases efficiency. Much better to answer a question once, publicly than a million times privately.
Can anybody tell me how Get Satisfaction makes money? They need some strategic direction.
@ Ben Her
LOL – That has got to be a contender for dumb TC comment of the week!
Get Satisfaction are building out a highly valuable service. Their product is excellent and I think in a couple of years time any company that remotely cares about customer service will have to use it. If you have that you don’t exactly need to bring in McKinsey to figure out how to turn that into cash.
Anyway, kudos to the guys at Get Satisfaction. This sounds like a great release and we can’t wait to use it.
Nigel Eccles makes the best point. With Twitter you don’t need an expensive consultant to tell you what your customers are saying about you.
Comcast’s Internet service is absolute garbage. I cancelled my service and went with AT&T DSL. AT&T is slower but it works. Comcast’s service works like 70% of the time.
I’m very amused that Comcast has someone that will respond proactively on twitter, but it’d be better if they responded proactively when I call Comcast customer service repeatedly telling them that the service does not work. This is a common experience. They have no ability to solve anything more than a very basic problem.
Comcast needs to get out of the Internet business before they loose most of their customers.
@JS – maybe they should monitor blog comments too
For even more fun on the Twittersphere, there’s http://twitter.com/secretbear and http://twitter....om/secretbear60.
The first pumps out the hot topics in the Twittersphere minute by minute – The other does the same, but assesses what’s been said in the last hour (from 24-36k messages or so)
GetSatisfaction is a great site! I applaud them for allowing the users give feedback to companies. This is a site definitely underrated. The only gripe is that not all the companies listed in getsatisfaction have reps.
This service lacks a viable business plan and a as well as a unique service or killer app – yet it continues to receive coverage from TC and other blogs. I’m flummoxed.
@Nigel
@Zane
Let me sure I understand.
Their competitors are McKinsey, Bain, Booz…..etc, Correct? That’s crazy! Why can’t Google Alerts do the same thing with a small upgrade to their algorithm? If you can spider the web for real time information or posts with keywords such as “Comcast” and receive an alert you would accomplish the same thing.
But, like @Ben Hur and @ Faux;
I’m intrigued by the idea as much as the VC’s who funded this thing with pocket change. However, I agree, I’m also interested in learning how these guys make money?
I do not know exactly what is happening and I Are techcrunch heavy pages?
Why is causing me great weight and slow.And updated several times after work?
May be the large pictures and comments have a significant role in the piece of matter.Let me I write in codes and other forum I did not find the same problem!!
Thank you