Could I ask the obvious question? Why didn’t Guy know you had a problem and get involved in sorting it out at any point during the 3 months BEFORE you turned to twitter. Those of us who think twitter is not for us won’t use that, we’d quite like senior CPW people to avoid being distracted by it and make sure people in the call centres do their jobs. A bit Luddit I know…

Rob – my bunkum comment (“bunkum-gate”?) is specifically to do with using Twitter to respond to customer gripes. I believe it will simply become too onerous on a large organisation to react to potentially thousands of complaints.

I’m fully behind the concept of monitoring online chatter in all its guises. If a topic becomes popular, with many comments made, then respond; it’s become an issue. But responding to every single personal gripe creates, for me, public dialogue in an area where it’s not always needed.

Having spent the last six years overseeing the PR for a low cost airline, if they were to engage with every single customer service Tweet, the company would grind to a halt! Maybe a bad example sector-wise, but you see my drift.

Jon – I absolutely agree with your point about companies with call centre-based customer services getting it wrong. I’d just say that Carphone Warehouse is merely opening up an additional channel through which it is dealing with customer complaints. For me, that’s not particularly trail-blazing.

For example, would they not be better aiming to improve their call centre experience or sign-up to a company-wide commitment to reduce the time taken to address customer complaints by x %?

That all said, I don’t wish to detract from your general point that it is really interesting to see a large, High Street brand embracing social media – let’s see how it all plays out.

Guy – I’m genuinely interested to see what you are doing through Twitter et al, and how this develops. As mentioned, I just worry that you’ll end up doing nothing but reactive Tweets to customer services questions and queries of all descriptions. If it does become an all-consuming task, perhaps you might have to traffic-light the gripes, responding, say, to just the red light ones.

To finish, no one can knock yourself/Carphone Warehouse for at least wanting to engage in dialogue with your customers. It’s a concept many low cost airlines would do well to follow.

Adrian
@adrian_johnson