In November of 2009, I switched my TV and Internet services from Charter Communications to ATT. I’ve never been a big fan of ATT, but I was tired of paying high cable bills and the internet service while fast, was not 100% reliable.
I ordered my ATT U-Verse service over the phone. The service was of course top-notch. Among the things I got over the phone was an offer for $300 worth of bonus rewards that I was told would come in the form of two separate Visa cards once my service was installed. One card was supposed to be for $100 with a separate card for $200 – so I thought.
I never realized that ATT could deliver satellite TV over the phone line. The TV service meets my expectations, and the Internet exceeds my expectations. I was nervous about switching to DSL, but it is every bit as fast as my cable and 100% reliable (so far). I highly recommend the product – it is a winner.
The problem came when I tried to get the rewards I was promised. To make a long story short, they tried to deliver 50% of what I was promised, twice as many cards (most $50), and 1-2 months later than I was led to believe I would receive them. I spent (wasted) hours of my time on the phone negotiating the automated avoidance system trying to reach a live person to help me with my problem. Last week my frustration boiled over when I tried to activate one of the reward cards and both the internet and telephone system failed to work.
So I took my lament to Twitter and complained about ATT.
That same day, a representative from ATT, @ATTChrisL reached out to me on Twitter and asked for my phone number. I was impressed, but that soon led to more frustration when he told me he had simply passed my number on to someone else.
When I did not get a call, I went back on Twitter and lamented again. Once again, @ATTChrisL responded, apologized, and took some additional action. A few days later, I got two separate calls from people at ATT to help me with my problem. My cards arrived Friday of last week for the full amount I was promised, and this time the telephone activation system worked flawlessly.
I think ATT is very smart to be on Twitter, and very fortunate to have people like @ATTChrisL working for them. He did his best to help me, but the system ATT has set up for him to work with still needs some improvement. Instead of being forced to pass me off to someone else, the system would be better if @ATTChrisL could work within his system to solve problems and then get back to customers with real solutions.
I was also encouraged to see that ATT fixed one of the roots of their problem, the broken reward card activation system. The other root problem I hope they address is how the folks that take orders communicate promises about rewards. They need to be much clearer about what it takes to get the reward, and while they are at it, they should simplify the entire system so customers get promised rewards quicker and easier.
Overall, I consider this a good example of how social media can help companies recover from service failures. I am impressed and very glad to be able to share this story of success.
If your company is going to be on Twitter, and I think it should be, you need to be ready to take action when people complain. The folks that run your Twitter accounts need to be trained and enabled to make decisions and take actions that will help you recover from a service failure and once again impress your customers. You also need to take what you learn from customers on Twitter and fix the root causes of the complaints in your products and service delivery systems. If you set up a system like this, Twitter can be a powerful tool that will differentiate you from your competition.
If you are not willing to do this, then your company should not even be on Twitter.
Related Posts:
Personal Branding: How and Why I Use Twitter
Service System Failure: A Tale of Two Hotels
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Ah, I feel your pain Bret!
ATT’s bumbling equivalent up here in Canada is Bell. I avoid them at all costs.
Good points in your post. I’m midway through reading Mitch Joel’s new book “Six Pixels of Separation.” Joel has a number of excellent examples on companies that have used social media in both effective and disastrous ways. Whether it’s Twitter, FaceBook, etc., only the foolhardy jump into this emerging technology without doing their homework first.
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Bret L. Simmons Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 9:27 am
You would think that a company that has been around as long as they have would have it figured out by now. The fact that they don’t to me says they don’t really care. They are getting better, but still have a long way to go. Let me know what you think of Joel’s book. thanks! Bret
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Bret, I am so so glad the frustrations with Charter reach farther than my sphere of tv and internet. It is very impressive how ATT handled your customer service inquiry, even though they stumbled in the process. Your mention of the automated phone service got me thinking about my experiences with customer service autobots. I can’t describe how quickly my frustration level boils over when I get tangled in an endless loop with an automated customer service line.
While some companies receive far too much phone traffic to be able to answer every call with a real person, I have been thoroughly impressed with companies adopting a call back system. I believe Truckee Meadows Water Authority utilizes a system that allows you to enter your phone number and provides an estimated time for a call back. The result is significantly less time arguing with the autobots and more time of actually talking to a representative. An example of good vs poor customer service systems.
Thanks! Kevin
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Bret L. Simmons Reply:
February 4th, 2010 at 6:23 pm
Oddly enough, Kevin, the one thing I liked about Charter was the ability to get a live person on the phone if you have a service problem. But when it came to keeping me as a customer, those folks I got on the line to appeal to were not willing to do what was necessary, so I switched. May be back in a few years, but for now the ATT product is just fine. Thanks! Bret
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