Just punch in your favourite(unfavourite) brands into TweetDeck and follow them for a few days. I did and found quite a few issues, and they are issues that won’t be fixed by a tool like Twitter.
I chose at random @Telstra, @Optus, @Woolworths, @cityrail, @bunnings
Some interesting learning’s - most open Monday to Friday between 9 and 6/6.30. The poor guys at Optus are copping a huge bashing at the moment due to their big push into iPhone acquisition without the infrastructure to handle all the new customers that came on board. The Woolworth’s people are OK but they are very focused on the ‘everyday rewards’ program. CityRail were also getting a bashing as their new timetable rolled out and the quirks of a system designed for the Victorian era came out - but whether the state government or CityRail itself is listening…..
Why Twitter is not the Solution
In today’s Wall Street Journal(WSJ) the article “Why Email no longer rules” with the subheading “And what that means for the way we communicate” Jessica Vascellaro writes that Twitter, Facebook and Google deliver constant streams of communication.
Big companies are not setup to answer these constant streams, in many ways they are not even setup to handle email very well. In my opinion - I would expect an email ( or web-form)might be to be answered in hours, and a day or longer is unacceptable. In the world of Twitter I would expect feedback in minutes and not hours. In both cases big companies fail us.
So why do big companies fail?
Big companies are big and complicated so that no single person can ever get their head around everything. So management disciplines and structures are created with KPI’s etc to measure performance. So at the end of the day you get silos in most likelihood a product structured business - for example although your local bank is a retail hub nearly all the communications is product focused, and when you call in to a call centre you get asked to nominate your product stream.
This example gives a simple example of why big companies struggle with Twitter - to fix a problem they need to understand:
Product Problems - pretty obvious except when you start to bundle services - so it helps if they they have an expert in your problem on staff
Channel problem - Banks are setup for people to walk into branches to fix their problems. They have call centres and web sites but huge retail networks are their key distribution platform. In Telecommunications they usually have a mix of outbound call centres, web and retail stores. In one company I calculated for a sales enquiry at least 20 inbound channels and five outbound channels. Each of these is essentially its own little silo within the business.
The ‘Real’ Problem - taking a mobile phone example, you will find that the phone dealer will try and fix any issues you have, but are bounded by the telco. For example they will sell you a phone, provide education, tell you about features and new products and get the phone provisioned/connected to the network. But they cannot help you with bills - and depending upon the type of dealer they may not even have access to see what you spent.
The crossing over of responsibilities over these three areas, result in it being difficult for a few Twitter users to quickly and rapidly fix your problems. Even after a decade of putting in CRM systems that run in to hundreds of millions of dollars, do they do it well over the phone, let alone email and certainly not Twitter.
Twitter - “lipstick on a pig”?
Today, most big companies with a Twitter presence are trying to address the needs of a small hi-tech, vocal community who expect response times on a stopwatch from a company that delivers to a calendar (Mon-Fri 9am to 6pm).
Twitter today is addressing ‘quick-fix’ issues with rapid customer responses. But it is limited to painting over cracks and silos within a large business.
Mobile-Related Share Shifts Will Create / Destroy Material Shareholder Wealth.