Instead of watching helplessly while bloggers beat up on it, Comcast tweets its way to better customer relations

Got a problem with your digital cable or Internet? Operators are standing by to help—on Twitter.

At least, that‘s the case with Comcast, one of the nation’s largest cable companies, which has made Twitter a major part of its social media strategy. Comcast is taking advantage of Twitter’s immediacy to improve customer service and gain credibility in the blogosphere.

Case in point: Last April blogger Michael Arrington related his experience with Comcast on his TechCrunch blog. Frustrated with his inability to get anyone at Comcast to fix a problem that had kept him offline for 36 hours, Arrington blasted the company on Twitter.

The response from Comcast was nearly instantaneous, according to Arrington.

“Within 20 minutes of my first Twitter message I got a call from a Comcast executive in Philadelphia who wanted to know how he could help. He said he monitors Twitter and blogs to get an understanding of what people are saying about Comcast, and so he saw the discussion break out around my messages.”

Comcast then sent a team out to fix his problem.

Arrington praised Comcast’s approach. “Well before most people, they have identified blogs, and particularly Twitter, as an excellent early warning system to flag possible brand implosions,” Arrington wrote. “It’s trivially easy to do a brand search on TweetScan and create a feed for any new postings. Whether you join in the conversation directly or reach out to aggrieved customers is up to you … With the information just sitting there, it’s surprising that more brands aren’t watching the tweetosphere.”

Blogger outreach

Comcast’s foray into the Twitter realm is an outgrowth of its effort to reach out to bloggers.

Frank Eliason, a Comcast customer service manager in charge of online conversations, says that when he arrived at Comcast in late 2007, the company’s blogger outreach was largely reactive. It would sporadically call bloggers who had written about Comcast’s products or services. “It wasn’t done too often,” Eliason recalls.

But Comcast realized that the approach overlooked a fundamental fact about blogging: Bloggers want to be heard, and they want interaction—as do customers.

Eliason’s 10-person online customer service group monitors Twitter to better manage outages and problems before they hit the critical point—often before phone-based teams have reports of the problems.

Twitter also makes follow-up much easier. One example is a recent Twitter conversation between service rep “ComcastBill” and Twitter user “Jotulloch.”

Jotulloch tweeted Comcast for help with a cablecard installation after a technician failed to show up at his home. ComcastBill was in touch almost immediately, asking for a description of the problem and following up on e-mails and phone calls.

The result? A final tweet from Jotulloch: “Tech came. All taken care of. Thanks for your help.”

Learning the ropes

So what are the key lessons that Comcast has learned from its experience with Twitter? Don’t just set up a tent and stand on the sidelines.

“It’s not a good fit if you are just going to throw a feed out there. But it’s a good fit if you are going to interact,” Eliason says.

It’s also important to do your homework. One of the reasons that Comcast has been so successful with Twitter is that its customers were already active in that space. In short, it didn’t have to build an audience from scratch. Comcast found an effective way to join the discussion and to communicate with customers in the way they want to communicate.

Other keys to success? Eliason highlighted a few:

• Keep it real. One of the key lessons is that Twitter users—like most social media consumers—want to know that they are dealing with real people, not automated robots or feeds. Comcast has taken that approach to the next level, assigning individual screen names to its online team. Eliason, for instance, tweets under the “comcastcares” moniker.

Another example of this strategy, Eliason notes, is JetBlue, which tells Twitter users who is on duty at the airline. The idea is to build relationships, something Comcast has been doing successfully. In fact, some of the connections that have developed on Twitter have led to business deals.

• Keep it simple. Comcast’s approach is aggressively low key. In most cases, it enters a conversation with the simple question, “Can I help?” “We are never intrusive,” Eliason says. “We don’t try to force or sell anything.”

• Be ready to act. Engaging in dialogue isn’t enough.

“Twitter is a great place to listen, but you have to be able to act on that info,” Eliason says. That requires coordination and infrastructure.

For instance, Comcast’s use of Twitter has gotten a boost from a tool called “Grand Slam,” which allows techs to perform a quick diagnostic of all of the devices in a customer’s home and in the region where she lives. “While communicating with a customer we can be quick to identify trouble that is in the area, allowing faster resolution,” Eliason says