If you ever doubted the power of social media in customer service, then this should clear the air. AT&T, the company that has quite the reputation for customer complaints, has turned to the world of social media in order to service its customers better.
According to an article over at Ad Age, AT&T sees an average of 10,000 mentions on any given day across social media. That’s a hefty number, by anyone’s account. But what happens when something goes wrong? That number, predictably, skyrockets.
To help deal with the ever-increasing communication across the medium, AT&T is beefing up its staff that is dedicated solely to SM communication. At present, AT&T monitors Facebook and Twitter, with a staff of 19 people whose entire goal is to reach customers on those platforms.
According to the article, and we tend to agree, AT&T’s largest issue to overcome right now is an increasing demand on its already-strained bandwidth. AT&T recognizes this, and is set to invest up to $19 billion on improving that network.
In the mean time, if you have grips, you should apparently try your hand at directing those toward AT&T’s Twitter or Facebook teams.
AT&T has possibly doomed themselves with their bad press and being in bed with Apple has not helped. They were also the LAST U.S. provider to carry Android phones and, even then, they’ve got the lowest range of selections.
Really, I hope that they are going to kick it up a notch and do manage to use social media to redeem themselves because I live in an area where the best 3G coverage is provided by AT&T (Verizon is the dropped-call king with very limited 3G here and is the only other valid provider).
Hey Brad,
Just to let you know, I gave this article a mention on a blog post I wrote about social media customer service (http://www.contentandmotion.co.uk/social-media-pr-blog/social-customer-service-puts-the-customer-back-in-control/) and how it puts the customer back in control.
We have a similar situation in the UK where the two biggest network providers (Vodafone and O2) are being bombarded with problems and complaints about the new iPhone 4 on their social media channels, and one is seemingly dealing with the onslaught than the other (sadly it’s Vodafone, who are not my service provider!). Anyway, my point is that it is great that AT&T are doing the same but hopefully they will provide good service rather than having another channel in which to ignore the customer’s problems!
I’ve had customer service nightmares with AT&T dating back three months. I’m finally ready to dump them, because they can’t even get my landline working and they’re constantly calling asking if I want AT&T Uverse. If they can’t get the static off my landline so that I can understand the other-end user and use my DSL, how bad must Uverse be?