Seesmic and Loic are a great example of best practice…and wouldn’t you know it, I have evangelized seesmic desktop more than any app I’ve ever used. A huge part of that is the engagement I’ve enjoyed from @jyamasaki (@askseesmic). Whenever I had an issue, he was there. Now when I hear people have an issue with seesmic or ask a question, I respond to them and if I can’t I direct them to Yama. They literally turned a frustrated customer into an unpaid customer service rep haha.

Good customer service is extremely powerful. Expect a post on this soon.

I agree that the initial response from Tweepular’s account wasn’t the best worded (and I say that as having done some work with Tweepular in the past). Instead of saying, “Don’t like it, don’t use it” they could have taken a leaf out of @Loic and @askseesmic and asked what the issue was, and worked on maybe resolving that (or advising it’s an upcoming feature).

To turn away a consumer and user of a product (even if you did say it sucked, which is still hardly as bad as some of the things that brands get called every day) seems a strange move.

Particularly when I know Jason, the guy behind Tweepular. His Vital Insights company makes customer service and branding an art form – so I can only guess that whoever was manning the Tweepular account that day was having a bad morning. Still no excuse, mind you…

Great to see both sides accepting and acknowledging “errors” were made and working with each other. While the original problem may have arisen because of open dialogue, it can also be resolved with it.

I am all for letting ones personally shine through in social media, and that includes being able to joke around every once and awhile. But that tweet you received was straight up degrading. There is a big difference between joking with someone and calling them an idiot.

Kudos on accepting the apology so gracefully tho.

The brand must remain civil and mature at all times, no matter how harshly they are being criticized. Responding to criticism in any way that reflects poorly on the brand’s character risks not only permanently losing the distraught consumer as a user of the brand, but a number of other consumers as well.

It is almost the year 2010. With the amount of technology that we have today, consumers can easily express their disappoint with a brand or a product to millions of potential readers with a few clicks of the keyboard. No matter whether the brand is for-profit or not, they are taking a huge risk by not addressing their users’ concerns as politely as possible. Instead of angering those consumers even more, kindly talk with them to see if you can address their issues in a way that benefits both of you in the end. As a brand, you always want to gain MORE consumers, not less.

My acerbic wit is what makes me fun .

Thanks,
David

Thanks,
Jason.