Way back in the early days of Amazon, our big concern was how to create a real connection with customers even though we were a pure-play (does anyone even think like this anymore? I don’t think so–pure-play now refers to online gaming cos 
We were aiming for high-touch customer service, consciously positioning ourselves as the real voice and face of this new and hugely popular–though somewhat scary–online bookstore (earth’s largest bookstore –fun article from Slate in 1997).
That high-touch goal is still elusive for a lot of companies out there; they still cut corners where they should be smarter and faster, they still look at old metrics to measure new problems, they’re still very much disconnected from the customer–hiding behind a website they insist will be the “touch” customers need and want. It’s usually not.
@comcastcares –Frank Eliason’s handle on Twitter–is a very smart move in the virtual high-touch arena. Frank is Director of Digital Care for Comcast Email We_Can_Help@cable.comcast.com, and among his interesting chops is the fact that he follows everyone who is following him, he answers support questions directly, is a virtual company directory for issues he himself can’t handle (and it appears he and his team can handle a LOT of issues), and as the Voice of Comcast, is a cheery welcoming tweeter to be in touch with.
The speed, smarts, and savviness of this approach is phenomenal–I’m a comcast customer who doesn’t really have any issues with our cable here in Seattle, but I almost wish I did just so I could interact with this group. Well done, Comcastcares!
3 responses so far ↓
1 Bryan/OrtingRunner // Oct 30, 2008 at 1:09 pm
After months of no response from phone calls to Comcast about signal issues, I used this @comcastcares and email. 48 hours late issue fixed. Most impressive! Thanks for the link and info!
2 Cass Nevada // Oct 30, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Hey OrtingRunner! That’s great news–sorry it took so long to get help but glad this approach worked for you–neat!
3 Social networking case study 10.10037-1 // Oct 31, 2008 at 9:44 am
[...] The other day Jeremiah Owyang tweet’d about Frank Eliason at Comcast who is the twitter/social media go-to guy for all things Comcast service (can you imagine the traffic?). I was so impressed with what he was doing that I wrote a blog post on it, you can find it here. [...]
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