Tweeting my problems away

May 11, 2010 by mandeewidrick

I like Twitter. I like it a lot. In fact, when I encounter an unwanted situation, I usually tweet about it. Why? Not because I’m trying to make my problems known to the world, but because there’s usually someone out there who can help me fix it.

Here’s an example. Not too long ago, I bought a wireless router from my local Best Buy. I ran into some problems with it and ended up getting a different one, so I returned it…or at least I tried to return it. Apparently they have some 30 day return policy that I wasn’t aware of, even though I had the original receipt and packaging for the product I was returning. They couldn’t even give me a store credit, something I was NOT at all happy about. Well, upon realizing the store wasn’t going to make an exception for a very unhappy customer, I urged myself to walk out of their doors calmly because I still had one more thing to try.

I would tweet about it.

And tweet about it I did. It couldn’t have been more than 2 minutes after I hit the “submit” button on my 140 spew about Best Buy that one of their master tweeters came along and asked how they could fix the problem. Within the hour, she had called the local store manager and arranged for me to return my router and get a store credit. The rep (Coral) was quite pleasant to work with. Just prior to connecting with her I was about ready to quit shopping at Best Buy all together, especially since it wasn’t the first time they’d made a bad impression. Kudos to you for that Best Buy. I still don’t like the ridiculous return policy, but I’m grateful for the speedy help offered through the web. Now, somebody needs to send their awesome Twitter team to the store to teach their employees a thing or two.

To mention a couple other companies that know what’s what with social media, I recently tweeted about both MailChimp and FedEx on Twitter and received same day responses. I was having trouble with my MailChimp signup form on the Horse Family site, and they tweeted me their support link. I mentioned that my new iPad (courtesy of TweetShare) was on its way via FedEx, and two FedEx reps instantly congratulated me on my iPad and thanked me for using their shipping service. Way to go, folks. You’ve got this Twitter stuff down! And I can rest assured knowing that nowadays, when I need something in a hurry, Twitter’s got my back.