Twitterville Table of Contents-Part 2

    

     [Nick Ayres of The Home Depot, part of Twitterville Chapter on Emergency Preparedness.]

[Note: This is the second installment of the Table of Contents [TOC] for my new book, Twitterville. You can see Part 1 here.  I am sharing the information I already plan to cover, partly in the hope that you might think of more information that can be included in the book. I am looking for good stories about how Twitter has helped people in business all over the world. I have only have the information I need to make this a full book and I am counting on the kindness of Twitterville to help flesh it out. The TOC is still in the 1st and longest part of the book, called "What has Happened."Links are listed to the right of words, because they will need to be transcribed into the hardcover book.]

Chapter 5 Comcast Service Faster service with a tweet than with a van

Comcast, a company whose customer satisfaction ranking has an historically abysmal ranking [http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r21300801-Comcast-customer-satisfaction-at-all-time-low-JD-Power], authorized Frank Eliason a customer service operative to create @ComcastCares [Twitter.com/comcastcares] in May 2008. Eliason, whose passion for quality service comes through as credible, even to the most cynical observers, has posted nearly 20,000 public and private “tweets,” nearly all directed at solving customer problems.

When it started, skeptics immediately voiced suspicion, charging ComcastCares is more PR than authentic customer service. They note that Eliason has a mere 5500 Twitter followers while Comcast serves 24 million US households--many would say poorly.

Still, ComcastCares has favorably moved the perception needle. Francine Hardaway [Twitter/Hardaway], an angel investor for Stealthmode Partners [www.stealthmode.com] described how Eliason spent hours with her on Twitter and by phone until a complex problem was resolved. Says Hardaway, “Frank is now a friend.” Interesting concept, since the two have never met.

Hardaway’s comment indicates how like a real neighborhood Twitterville can be. You have a problem and you go in to see a merchant. It turns out to require extra time and energy. The guy comes out to your house, spends time and converts you into a happy customer. This is not a one-sided story. Comcast is still reeling from the pain of a YouTube video that showed a Comcast service representative asleep on the couch in a home where he was supposed to install a modem [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvemT5uETrA].

By contrast, Eliason seems to make customers happy, and when he does, something bigger happens. People start saying nice things about you and the company you represent. In Twitterville, people feel kinship with Eliason. An impersonal customer relationship becomes personal as Hardaway illustrates.

As we enter tough times, customer support is a critical and strategic issue. The company representatives who share face time with customers will shape the reputation of the company moving forward. Frank Eliason can reach and help more customers in a day than a sleeping serviceman can irk.

But Twitter is doing more than that for Comcast. Based on its experience to date, Comcast is planning to make structural changes to its entire support system in January based on conversations on Twitter with customers. One example: decentralizing overnight parking of service vans. This allows the cable guy to get to homes faster at the start of the day and save the company significantly in fuel costs.

As almost any company can tell you, providing quality customer service is expensive.  Yet providing poor support alienates customers who often use Twitter and other social media tools to spread hostile word of mouth about companies. Comcast is a case study on how the very same tools are starting to allow companies to improve support and service while simultaneously lowering the cost of providing it on a superior level.

[NOTE: I will ask Twitterville to submit more stories regarding Twitter in customer service.]

Chapter 6.  Your friendly, local, global shop

This chapter looks at success stories of large companies using Twitter to improve their businesses.
H&R Block has a very loyal customer base. Year after year, Block’s customers visit an H&R Block representative in some neighborhood strip mall. Some of them have receipt-filled shoeboxes under their arms.

And every year the average customer was a year older. Younger taxpayers were not replacing older ones as they retired and died off. Instead, taxpayers, under age 35 were turning to TurboTax an online tax preparation service, which held a 70% market share, higher in young demographics.

In 2006, Block brought in a new marketing expert, Paula Drum whose team has since initiated several social media programs. Among the most successful was their Twitter account [Twitter.com/hrblock] Over time, the company has begun to lessen its considerable expense of maintaining a network of brick and mortar offices as it transitions into a modern online organization with Twitter as a primary lead generator.

Zappos.com [http://www.zappos.com] of Las Vegas is an entirely different kind of retailer. It has no brick and mortar, but has emerged as a leading consumer goods online retailer selling clothing and appliances.
While the company maintains that its own website has not lost any of its e-tail luster, the company seems to have opened up a new show in Twitterville, where CEO Tony Hsieh maintains a Twitter account [twitter.com/zappos] along with 243 members of his sales staff, each of whom are active on their own accounts.

Whole Foods [twitter.com/wholefoods], the organic food supermarket has 8500 followers, despite the accounts tendency toward self-promotion. In recent weeks it has become more conversational and will be included in this chapter. Seagate Technologies, the world leader in storage devices has recently started a Twitter Account [twitter.com/SeagateTech] . The company appears to be using it to establish itself as a primary source of storage technology information.

While Twitter once again was the energy engine of SXSW in 2008, San Francisco Bay Area residents, there was a problem that Twitter could not directly solve, although it would play a role. When people who wanted to attend complained on Twitter that there weren’t enough flights to get to the conference, Jet Blue, the upstart airline, scheduled extra flights from San Francisco to Austin and used Twitter exclusively to announce them [Twitter.com/jetblue]. They sold out quickly. Since then they have attracted over 6000 followers and use Twitter to discuss customer support issues as well as promote special deals.

Next year, SXSW attendees have some hope for a price war. SouthwestAirlines [twitter.com/SouthwestAir]  and VirginAmerica [twitter.com/virginamerica] have since set up competing Twitterville shops. That is assuming the economy does not eliminate one of these three players.
The parade keeps lengthening and can be expected to continue to do so during the period in which Twitterville will be written.

[NOTE this Chapter may also cover celebrity Tweeters such as Shaquille O'Neill [Twitter.com/the_real_shaq, Al Gore [twitter.com/TheRealAlGore], MC Hammer [http://twitter.com/mchammer] and Britney Spears [twitter.com/britneyspears] (actually her publicist) . Either this chapter, or another will discuss the growing number f successful recruitment stories such as we have heard so far from Ryan Kuder [twitter.com/ryankuder] who Tweeted about being laid off from Yahoo, and found financing and a partner for a promising startup as well as Tom Raftery [twitter.com/TomRaftery] whose offer to join Redmonk, [http://redmonk.com],a tiny, global "open source analyst firm" was tendered--and accepted--on Twitter.

7. Tweeting in a Crisis

Twitter seems to be at its very best during a crisis, but then so are people.

First-person accounts of several hurricanes were best told through Twitter accounts including NPR’s social media strategist Andy Carvin [http://www.andycarvin.com/archives/2006/08/my_new_job_at_npr.html] who started his own Twitter Hurricane account [http://www.hurricanes08.org/profile/andycarvin] to distribute news, which would eventually be picked up by traditional media, including NPR.

Several times, earthquakes have been reported in Twitter and circulated around the world before being picked up by the traditional press. Robert Scoble reported China’s 8.0 Sichuan Earthquake that killed 70,000 people and made 375,000 Chinese homeless more than an hour before the BBC confirmed what he had learned and reported on Twitter. As sometimes happens with fast-breaking news, Robert had a few details wrong including the location [http://twitter.com/Scobleizer/statuses/809121152], but still, he had a scoop whose key information turned out to be true.

Perhaps this is why traditional news organizations have started to move aggressively into Twitterville.  Four traditional news organizations, CNN [twitter.com/cnnbrk], the New York Times [twitter.com/nytimes], CNET [twitter.com/cnet] and NPR [twitter.com/nprnews]  are among the 100 most popular Twitter accounts. The Dutch-based Breaking News, exists exclusively on Twitter and  is #80 on the Twitterholic [twitterholic.com] most popular list. In fact, 24-hours before I posted this, CNN broke news of an Indonesian earthquake on Twitter rather than any of its other news channels.

Each of these organizations use Twitter to operate in two directions. They gather news that often first breaks in Twitterville--a new form of citizen journalism--and they dispatch news, often ahead of their own more traditional channels.

The America Red Cross [Twitter.com/redcross] uses Twitter to quickly dispatch emergency information before, during and after disasters such as the Grand Canyon flood [www.cnn.com/2008/US/weather/08/17/arizona.dam/index.html] in spring 2008 and during Hurricane Gustav [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Gustav] in August 2008, they Tweeted about shelter locations, survival tips and other information almost around the clock. Reporters used the Red Cross Twitter account because it was ahead of traditional wire services and turned out to be more accurate. It had more people on the scene than any media organization, which also helped.

The Los Angeles Fire Department [LAFD], an established pioneer in using social media to interact with its constituents posts all inbound calls on its Twitter account [twitter.com/LAFD]. When a major fire breaks out as happened in summer 2008, in Los Angeles' largest park, the LAFD received Twitter-based inquiries for national and overseas media including BBC. The LAFD insisted that the subsequent radio interview be held on its own live BlogTalkRadio live podcast [podcast.com/show/41194].

But the business enterprise who has inadvertently capitalized most is The Home Depot (THD), whose Nicholas Ayres told me was a reluctant entrant into social media. It decided to take its first foray in Twitter because the company felt it was the least risky venue.

But THD’s otherwise safe and bland Twitter account [Twitter.com/TheHomeDepot]came alive in hurricane season 2008. The company’s Tweeter designate, Sarah Molinari, a communications manager,  used Twitter to keep communities situated in the forecast paths of hurricanes informed. More than that, they advised on emergency preparedness, some of which required purchasing items you could buy at Home Depot.  It’s stores made it a policy to be the last to close when a storm actually hit, and the first to open after the deluge. It had extra goods shipped in from other Home Depots and called in food for its staff that worked through the night in stores situated in at-risk locations.

“People appreciated it, “ Ayres told me. “We didn’t plan it this way, but our hurricane efforts on Twitter are probably good for business. We have a sense that the next time anyone we helped during a hurricane, needs something we sell, they’ll drive right past the Lowe’s store [THD's leading competitor] to buy from us.

The company since has developed a standard procedure for using Twitter during other natural disasters such as fires, earthquakes and floods.

[NOTE: I will ask Twitter people to recount additional stories about Twitter being used in emergency situations. They will be added to this Chapter.]

Comments

[Kyle]

Uhhh.

Do we really need a book about Twitter?

Things are getting out of hand. I think Darren's pointless Twitip blog is enough.

[andy carvin]

Hi Shel,

Let me know if you need more info about the role of Twitter during the hurricanes - or the Twitter Vote Report project on election day, for that matter...

[nate]

Shel,

Also, if you need any information about the role of Twitter during the San Diego fires of 2007, I'd be happy to help. Feel free to contact me any time.

[Lhasa Tibet Traveller]

Twitter only supports English?
Does it support other languages? (like Japanese, Chinese)

Thanks!

[Lhasa Tibet Traveller]

Twitter only supports English?
Does it support other languages? (like Japanese, Chinese)