The power of Twitter - an example of how to use Twitter successfully in business

Recently I had the opportunity to experience the true power of Twitter as a consumer and see how that power was turned into a positive customer experience by a business participating fully in their social network. As an online agency E-scape uses several Cloud based hosting solutions which up until recently were only available in US data centres. One of our primary solution providers, Rackspace recently made their Cloud solution available via their UK data centre and so it was a perfect time to start the migration of a few clients to servers closer to their target market.

The first part of this process was to create a new user account with the UK service. Easy right? Not so much as it turned out. After several failed attempts to complete the processes I contacted Rackspace's "fanatical support" to request assistance. Using their online chat service an agent tried to diagnose the problem without much luck. Not a problem sometimes front line support can't solve the problem so I was informed that someone would call me back shortly to assist.

Two hours later and no call. Not so fanatical after all then. Back onto support, go through the exact same diagnostic process with another agent. Told again that someone would call. Benefit of the doubt given, wait for the call.

Another few hours and another call with no results and it's time to act. So out goes a tweet mentioning Rackspace and expressing my dissatisfaction with the situation so far.

@jasonstratford: Been trying to setup a UK @rackcloud account since 9.30am. So far a Jersey address seems to be a problem that no one can fix. #fail #in

Fifteen minutes later I have a response on twitter with an email address of someone willing to sort it out.

@Rackspace: @jasonstratford sorry you're having trouble! Could you send details to twitter@rackspace.com so we can help sort things out?

A couple of emails later and I am on a call with that person being walked through the process to diagnose the problem with an activation agent waiting on the call to take over as soon as the account is set up. Now that's more like the "fanatical support" I was expecting.

So what have I taken from this experience?

First, voicing a complaint in a public forum can shake the tree and get results. But it's best to keep it civil as being pissy is going to be counter productive.

Second, the first is only true if the company your complaining to takes their social presence and reputation seriously.Your can get a good idea if this is true by reviewing their presence. If its filled with lost of positive feedback and personal interactions your on the right tracks.

Third and finally, a strong and positive response in a public arena can turn a failure into a win for both the customer and business.

We are still happy Rackspace customers and although their support initially showed some pretty big problems, in the end they solved the problem and kept a customer. Not a bad save for having someone keeping an eye on their Twitter account.