A couple of months ago, a friend’s cable TV got disconnected out of the blue. She immediately telephoned the cable company’s hotline to have it fixed. Two weeks and a couple of failed follow-up phone calls later, and still the only channel viewable from her TV is Sadako’s.
Out of sheer frustration, she tweeted about the cable company’s lame services. Within minutes, a representative from the cable company tweeted back, apologized, and asked for the details of her complaint. The next day, she got her cable TV back.
As my friend’s story shows, tweeting has the potential to push service companies to provide better services, or at the very least, be more responsive to their clients’ complaints.
Twitter publishes its members’ thoughts, however mundane or profound it may be, in 140 characters or less. Its Trending Topics algorithm identifies popular topics currently being twitted. Trending topics appear in the home page of members, who can choose to tweet about it.
It is in the interest of service companies to prevent complaints about the service they provide from trending in twitter, lest they detract customers or gain negative publicity. A twitter member’s followers may also chance upon the tweet, and might not avail of the company’s services as well. Conversely, any positive feedback serves as a welcome advertisement.
Unleashing the potential of tweeting to maximize the quality of services provided entails awareness from the tweeting public that their tweets have the power to influence companies. Or in other words: Twitters of the world unite, we have nothing to lose but our _____. But, what will we lose?
--Ma. Alexandria Ixara B. Maroto, second post
No comments:
Post a Comment