Customers Fight Back

In the old days, when you received poor customer service, you could do one of two things: Wait on hold for an hour to speak to someone in ‘Customer Care’ or just get over it because seriously, how much impact could one person have.

Now, in the days of Web 2.0, business is becoming personal again and the beauty of it is that anyone can have a voice and they are using it! Case in point, Comcast.

Comcast is notorious for long wait times, poor service and technicians that often do more damage than good. Well, Comcast customers couldn’t take it anymore and it finally sent them over the edge. With the use of Web 2.0, the customers started fighting back.

Through the use of YouTube, one customer posted a video of a Comcast technician that fell asleep at their house while on hold with the Comcast customer service department! Another gentleman started a Web site called Comcast Must Die that allowed customers to comment with their own personal Comcast nightmare.

After years of complaints, what did Comcast finally do? They started to listen. How did they respond? With a Twitter account. Starting in April 2008, a Comcast employee, Frank Eliason, used his own twitter account to reach out to customers complaining about Comcast on blogs, Web sites, YouTube, etc. With his quick responses and helpful advice, he was slowly but steadily changing the perception of Comcast one customer at a time. Comcast immediately picked up on this tool and started a twitter account called Comcast Cares in which Eliason is part of a team that scans social media and responds quickly to customer complaints.

The result…positive responses about Comcast are growing exponentially among customers since the implementation of Comcast Cares. In fact, if you visit the Comcast Must Die Web site, they’ve declared victory over Comcast claiming that “the vast, greedy, blundering, tone-deaf corporate colossus which, in one short year, has seen the light.”

Victory at last.