Comcast Wins With Twitter

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I just had an amazing experience in customer service from Comcast and felt that it would be easier and quicker to share in a podcast rather then in a blog post.

With all the flack they have gotten over the years, I’ve actually been very fortunate to have a mostly good experience with them and the last 24 hours really proves that when a brand pays attention to the conversation happening out on the web about them and actively works to engage in that, good things can happen.

If you are not in the mood to listen, the short version of the story is that last night I made a snide remark about the lackluster quality of my HD picture on Comcast during the Celtics game. Comcast saw that and tweeted me back minutes later. This morning I got a call from their service center. This afternoon someone came out. Now my HDTV rocks! THAT my friends is customer service and how it should work all the time.

Brands need to wake up to the fact that “new media” isn’t going away and in fact, I’d argue that it isn’t new anymore, but is here and at the forefront so you either wake up and pay attention or you lose business to they company that is paying attention.

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Comments

  1. May 23rd, 2008 | 4:07 pm

    That’s great. @Comcastcares on twitter rocks.

    Can you briefly tells us what Comcast fixed when they came out.

    I’m interested.

  2. May 23rd, 2008 | 4:11 pm

    Nice. That is exactly the kind of response companies should be giving anyway. You’d think that Verizon would start listening next… before Lynette gets out her bat…

  3. May 23rd, 2008 | 4:12 pm

    Yeah it was 99.99% idiot user error on my part. I had component cables hooked up and thus the true HD wasn’t coming through. We switched the cables and he even made some tweaks to the color settings on the television to get it JUST right. He was here a total of 5 minutes and it completely changed everything on my TV. Best part is it didn’t cost a dime so it was worth the 4 hour window to be here and let them in.

  4. May 23rd, 2008 | 4:35 pm

    Agree, loving @comcastcares . I tweet them when I am having issues in my area and they always get back to me or have someone call me. Transparent customer service is essential for brands today.

  5. May 23rd, 2008 | 6:26 pm

    comcast has yet to fix my HD picture quality… i have a interference line at the top of screen and 4 tech visits have not helped. forgive me for being cynical but i suspect the fact that you would make such a positive ‘passionate’ post about it was the impetus behind your experience.

  6. May 23rd, 2008 | 7:51 pm

    ChrisJ - Not sure what you mean. Comcast doesn’t know me from a hole in the wall. They had no idea I’d blog or say anything about it.

    When the tech looked at it and instantly said “you’ve got the wrong cables” and explained that was the problem. He was happy to see that I had an extra HDMI cable that I had bought originally. He hooked that up and went into some special Comcast menu and changed some settings and then everything was fine.

    He also mentioned that he thought the resolution setting on the box might be wrong (little button on the front), but I guess I had set that one right because he didn’t have to change it.

  7. May 23rd, 2008 | 8:46 pm

    Thank you for the compliment. We enjoy being involved in Social Media. It is simply another way that we can connect with our Customers.

    I am happy that we found the problem!

    Frank Eliason
    @ComcastCares

  8. Steve Coulson
    May 24th, 2008 | 6:41 pm

    Wow, this is pretty impressive. Although it’s also sad that we live in a world where we’ve come to expect that companies never listen, ya know?

  9. May 27th, 2008 | 1:01 pm

    CC, Just listened to the podcast on comcast and twitter. Over the weekend I was thinking about twitter and customer service, sort of wondering if companies are willing to go balls out and handle customer complaints in front of a world-wide live audience. This morning you gave me the answer, thanks for the brian dump!

  10. May 27th, 2008 | 9:35 pm

    […] Comcast Wins With Twitter on C.C. Chapman’s Managing The Gray […]

  11. May 29th, 2008 | 1:00 pm

    Hi CC!

    My Comcast/twitter story here.
    http://blog.calevans.com/2008/05/12/a-tale-of-two-twitters/

    ComcastCares isn’t the only Comcast employee monitoring twitter. They get it, unfortunately, some others don’t.

    =C=

  12. May 29th, 2008 | 1:26 pm

    See, Brad *HAD* to bring up Verizon and their crappy service. Comcast has always been good in our area, especially considering we only got ISDN two years ago. Having @ComcastCares on Twitter makes me a LOT happier to have them as a service. Maybe in the future I’ll only use goods and services that have an *active* and *engaged* online service.

  13. May 29th, 2008 | 1:56 pm

    […] to Verizon: Get a clue. Comcast helps their customers. Maybe you should take a […]

  14. May 29th, 2008 | 5:43 pm

    I must say that I’m rather impressed. This is the first time that I’ve ever heard of monolithic brands effectively using social media to scan for negative customer comments and actually doing something about it!

    Do you suppose that they are using some sort of aggregation tool on twitter or more broadly across social media or is there a rep dedicated to monitoring twitter?

    Curtis N. Bingham

  15. May 29th, 2008 | 6:44 pm

    […] Chapman shared his quite interesting experience of Comcast monitoring Twitter for negative comments and scheduling a technician visit in response […]

  16. June 9th, 2008 | 11:59 pm

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  18. July 18th, 2008 | 8:14 am

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  19. July 31st, 2008 | 10:10 am

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  20. August 5th, 2008 | 10:39 pm

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  22. October 1st, 2008 | 11:20 pm

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