Using Twitter to Evaluate a Service

I have a reputation here for going straight to Twitter if I have something to say. Especially if I want to complain about a product or service. To a large extent, the reason I do this is because it works.

If you look at a Twitter account, you see their interactions with other people. You see their conversations, their replies, and whether or not they are helpful and proactive. You see if they care (or don’t). Frankly, I even like to see them post status messages, good or bad. It lets you know they’re being honest, and not just sharing the good news.

Providing support on Twitter is far more common than you might imagine. For me, it is almost always the fastest way to get a reply from a company that makes a computer product or web based service.

If a company does a bad job of supporting their customers, it is immediately obvious. You see grumpy responses, or no responses. You can also get a feel for how active they are with updates. Seeing the folks at Slack write frequent tweets, both answering questions and just being funny, won me over.

The closest analog I can think of would be if you were able to listen to the last 50 support calls that a company had received. That’s not likely to happen, nor would it be very enjoyable… but it would give you a feel for how they treated their customers.

You can’t listen in on those calls… but you can check someone out on Twitter. I recommend you do.

Photo credit: VinothChandar

Raymond Brigleb

Creative Director, dreamer, partner, father, musician, photographer. Has been known to ride the rails. Pulls one heck of a shot.