The other day I sat on my glasses. No biggie, I knew of a company causing quite a stir in the glasses sector, slashing retail prices by skipping the middlemen, the opticians, with their fancy eye testing machines. Or possibly more accurately by merely revealing the truth that a pair of glasses don’t need to cost £200. They are called Glasses Direct.
The buying process is, however, a bit complicated, especially for first time customers. First, you do an eye test. Then, you suffer the optician’s sales pitch before claiming your prescription. You may then just order by phone but more likely you would ask for a tryout package of four frames, which you must return within seven days. Last of all you buy your glasses online, entering the scribbles of your optician as well as all the required information.
While all the steps have been thought through to be as simple as possible, chances are something may go wrong. Your optician may have not written all the information, the trial frames may be delayed with your seven days allowance looming, the site may not be working, etc. Sure enough, they have a team of people on the phone, but I hate calling to make a complaint. More often than not, the call doesn’t pass over the queue, it’s a terrible waste of time and the person at the other side of the phone may not have the answer you need for a myriad of reasons.
Xavi, after 15 more minutes on hold...
Returning to my little story, a delay in my trial package was flagged up on Twitter to @Glasses_direct, who acknowledged the delay and updated their records. From then on, the person behind the Twitter profile accompanied me all the way through the buying process. We exchanged 4-5 tweets taking a few minutes, if not seconds. Needless to say, I am delighted with the company (but not only for their customer service).
If you have a customer service department, if you deal with customer complaints you must be on Twitter. Maybe in two years you would be in another platform, but in 2010 you must be on Twitter. And here is a bullet point list on how I think Twitter outperforms call centres in customer services:
- Tweets always go through. If the customer has a complaint, they are able to tweet in seconds with the guarantee that it will be read. This lets off some steam, rather than building up rage as when in a call queue.
- Twitter scale better. With the right method, you can deal with hundreds of tweets in a few minutes. I’ll spare the technical details, but email if you need ideas on how to accomplish this.
- Twitter is free for you and your customer. A customer calling an Internet company from their mobile can spend anything from £2 to £10 in a call, while he is queuing or being redirected.
- A tweet is 140 characters long, so forget those lenghty emails that take so long to get through and understand. (On the downside some problems may not have enough room within the 140 constraint)
- Tweets are recorded, so superiors can analyze the nature and reaction to complaints. This will provide actionable insights in various flanks: marketing, sales and HR.
- The opportunistic outreach of your customer may be followed by a follow or listing, if your dealing was satisfactory. This converts complaints/queries into brand exposure and trust.
I am sure more observation could be made, so, as always please drop a comment, why don’t you 
Disclosure: I don’t have any sort of relationship to any member of Glasses direct, nor was I ever outreached/sponsored/interrupted by any marketing/sales pitch from them.
About The Author
Xavi Izaguirre
Xavier Izaguirre joined Social Media Library in November 2009 working as part of the Research Team. Prior to joining Social Media Library, Xavier completed a Masters Degree in Marketing and Communications at Westminster University, London. An active user of Social Media platforms, Xavier is very passionate about new trends in communication and Social Media Marketing contributing towards a number of online campaigns within the Educational Sector.
Follow Xavier on Twitter at @Xavi_izaguirre
Could The Power Of Twitter Go Up In Flames?
A couple of weeks ago, I found myself Tweeting to one Toby Young, a columnist for The Times newspaper, in response to his hastily written article on the death of Alexander McQueen. The article in question attempted to burst the bubble of ‘McQueen as genius’ that had appeared across the media in the wake of his death. My problem being, not the content of the piece, but its timing, coming less than 24 hours after his suicide. I felt no hesitation at sending him the following Tweets:
@toadmeister lays the boot in to Alexander McQueen 1 day after his suicide – http://bit.ly/cFxw1k. What a lovely man you are.
@toadmeister Could you not have waited more than 1 day after someone’s suicide before laying the boot in? 1 day!
I wasn’t alone in my criticism of Young and it was with interest then that I read his follow-up piece in The Spectator. Which got me thinking. Was I right to leave the messages I did? Were people justified in leaving the kind of messages Alexis Petridis and Caitlin Moran left? Were we cyber-bullies? Pre-Twitter, an article such as this would’ve gone off without possible direct reply to the author. A scathing blog post here, a disparaging comment at the water cooler there, maybe a letter to the editor, but nothing that Young would necessarily have heard himself. By being on Twitter (and publicising his writing through it), Young has offered himself up for public and very direct criticism (as well as praise, of course). But when does criticism become abuse? And is there any tangible use in name-calling?
Toby Young
Personally, I think that Young’s original article was pretty deplorable in its timing and I’m glad that Twitter exists to give an opportunity for anyone to make their feelings known to the author directly. However, I think we’re in danger of allowing the power of Twitter to provoke sensible debate and possible change to slip away from us if it is used crudely. In the same way that Internet discussions have become victim to Godwin’s Law, the observation that the longer the discussion continues, the more likely it is to feature a Nazi analogy, and most comment boxes are now used mainly for angry confrontation, it would be a shame to see Twitter go the same way. Twitter is, of course, a media that is social by nature, which means it reflects society’s wide variety of views and methods of communicating them. But, if criticism isn’t constructive or reasonably delivered it is tempting for the author to take the moral high ground and not respond.
Toby Young says he must “take it on the chin” and he’s quite right; the views aimed at him were genuine and expressed the way they were with good reason. But surely if you’ve chosen to publicise yourself through a media termed ‘social’, it’s reasonable to use it socially and acknowledge the points of view of others directed at you? As it is, Toby Young doesn’t have to answer to anyone on his original piece, but I’m hoping some of the more carefully worded Tweets aimed at him may have pricked his conscience…
About the Author
Paul Barnett
Paul Barnett is a Social Media Analyst for Social Media Library, responsible for developing the content within Social Media Library. Paul lives in a world of blogs, blogs and more blogs, scouring the web and plucking out the juiciest information he finds. Previous to this, he worked as a Music Press Officer. He is also a freelance writer, writing for TV and editing a music title, SWN Magazine.