A couple of days ago I couldn’t post a tweet using either Seesmic Desktop or TweetDeck. I had read something about the impending Twitpocalypse and remembered that it was supposed to be in the next few days. I hadn’t really believed in the Twitpocolypse, but not being able to send a tweet with either of my Twitter clients was worrisome. Knowing that the Twitter website was not going to be affected, I sent out a tweet to see what was going on.
Almost immediately, I got a reply from @askseesmic.
I had heard about this kind of enhanced customer service. I even know a guy doing it. But, this was my first experience and it rocked. I was having a problem and out of the vastness of the Internet came someone who could help. And not just another user saying, ‘Yeah, me too,” but person who was actually in a position to help fix the problem. What makes this even more amazing is that I paid nothing ($0) for Seesmic.
When contrasted with some of the truly deplorable customer service experiences I’ve with companies I send between $40 and $100 per month, every month–Bell South, Cingular, DirectTV– it’s even more amazing. In fact, if Seesmic starts offering phone or television services, I would switch in a heartbeat. I would like to reward companies who have this kind of response time with as much of m business as possible.
I guess Raving Fans isn’t required reading in enough business programs. I read it in a class called User Needs and Preferences at FSU. Long story short: Delight your customers and they will come back and tell others.
I don’t have a huge army of followers on Twitter, but a few people probably saw this tweet. Now they know Seesmic is a company that cares about delighting it’s customers. As far as brand attributes go, that’s pretty good– especially in the crowded Twitter-client market.
Now, I also mentioned TweetDeck in my origianl tweet about the twitpocalypse. Did they offer to help me? Nope. I’m not sure of the stats, but TweetDeck is probably the market leader right now. They probably don’t need to go after every customer. Or maybe just not yet! I haven’t launched their app in two days.
Note:
I was actually a victim of the Twitpocalypse. It wasn’t Seesmic or Tweetdeck, but Twitterific on my iPod Touch. I hope Apple approves the update soon.
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thank you so much for your post about our customer service, I am glad you liked how we help and we will be happy to help more in the future.
It is a great sign when a company like yours really gets social media. I’m going to have to write another post about all the great follow up you did with me here and on Twitter. Other companies could learn so much from you :)
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