Comcast searches Twitter for customers in need
July 11, 2008 – 1:52 pm by Griffin HammondI read this Boston Globe article about customer complaints in social media, and one story caught my attention:
When C.C. Chapman noticed a blemish in his high-definition television’s reception during the NBA playoffs recently, he blasted a quick gripe about Comcast into the online ether, using the social network Twitter.
Minutes later, a Twitter user named ComcastCares responded, and within 24 hours, a technician was at Chapman’s house in Milford to fix the problem.
“Minutes later”?! Who knew anyone was out there actively listening to Twitter complaints, let alone locating them and responding so quickly? I contacted “ComcastCares” (real name: Frank) and asked him about his job and how he manages to keep on top of all things social media.
At Comcast, they have a team of customer service reps who search through blogs, social networks, and micro-blogging sites, like Twitter and Plurk, looking for unhappy customers. Frank said they’ve used social media to help thousands, and their online eavesdropping has only weirded out seven people. Most are grateful for the help.
Because Twitter doesn’t offer an easy way to search through user feeds, I’ve been using Google and a “site:twitter.com ’search term’” search query to locate specific conversations on Twitter. But Frank told me about Summize and TweetScan, both Twitter-specific search engines. Summize, which has a cleaner-looking interface than TweetScan, also lets you subscribe to an RSS feed about your search query. This is one way Comcast can react so quickly to Twitter updates.
