Sunday, June 01, 2008

Comcast Goes Twittering

It may be risky for billion dollar companies to use social marketing tools like Twitter and blogs because it can backfire when customers are angry. For instance, it just takes one customer to put up a YouTube video of a Comcast technician who fell asleep on the customer’s couch to blacken Comcast’s reputation. However, a employee at Comcast found a clever way to use Twitter to have a conversation with customers and evangelize the Comcast brand.

Comcastcares on Twitter is managed by Frank Eliason, a Comcast employee who experimented with Twitter and discovered a very passionate response from Comcast customers. Anyone can send a direct message to Frank by beginning their twitter update with “d Comcastcares” followed by their message. Frank currently has 1,752 people who are following his Twitter feed, which is pretty remarkable. Almost 2,000 people care enough about Comcast that they are willing to receive updates whenever Frank has something to say.

A majority of Comcastcare's 3,800 Twitter updates thus far consist of Frank simply responding to people who have issues with their service. Frank often goes above and beyond to solve customer issues such as giving out his email or tracking down the someone in the company who can help. You can read some of Frank's twitter conversations over at quotably.com. Frank has won over many fans with his empathy and warmness, even when he takes heat from angry customers. Using Twitter has put a human face to a huge telecom company, which has demonstrated that maybe Comcast really does care.

I have moved off Blogger to my own domain www.coolmarketingstuff.com

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

mm... What on earth is Comcast? This is one of those US-only posts, isn't it?