Why you need to get on the Twitter game

Introduction

DoC wrote about this a month or two ago, but I’m reiterating it again for you guys – YOU NEED TO START USING TWITTER!  I realize most of you are too old for this social media stuff.  I know.  But it’s not like I’m telling you to create a Pinterest account or start posting pictures of food to Instragram or Snapchatting your Brett Favre to your friends.  Even my 15 yr old niece told me a couple of months ago, “Facebook?  No one uses that anymore… we all use Snapchat.”  Well then.  And honestly, I’ve only been active on Twitter for the past 6 months.  But the reason why you need to start using Twitter, well besides for the AMEX offers, is that you’ll get better problem resolution on Twitter.  Think of it this way – companies don’t want bad press or lots of people bad-mouthing them.  They seem to put their best customer service reps to handle their Twitter account, and these reps seem to be the ombudsman and can handle almost any issue.  I’ll give you some of my recent Twitter experiences:

Club Carlson to the Rescue

On my most recent trip to Cape Town, we were upgraded to a business class room at the Radisson Blu Waterfront.  Now don’t go assuming I got upgraded because I’m a blogger.  The RSVP was in my wife’s name, and I think she got it because a) it was mid-week and b) she’s a Gold member due to the Visa card and most non-US people aren’t even CC members, much less Gold members.  Anyway, we had 2 RSVP’s for 2 nights for a total of 4 nights (for the Visa card trick).  After our first night, the receptionist told us that we’d need to change rooms for the last 2 nights since they didn’t link the 2 RSVP together, and she wasn’t upgraded for the last 2 nights.  Quick aside – when we first got upgraded, I Tweeted a picture of the room and thanked CC for the upgrade.  Now we were ready to pack up and move for the last 2 nights, but I went ahead and tweeted CC asking them, “Are you seriously going to downgrade my room for my last 2 nights in Cape Town?”  Within hours, I emailed CC my reservation info and they later Tweeted back saying, “We contacted the hotel and you are confirmed in the same room for the last 2 nights.”  Are you kidding me?  That was awesome.  Do you think that would have occurred if I either called or emailed CC?  So that just goes to show the power of social media.

Other incidents:

• You don’t even need to be a blogger to feel the love.  Reader Esther replied to my CC Tweet saying she was downgraded the last night at a Park Hyatt on a trip.  She didn’t even tag Hyatt, but they responded very quickly, asking for info on the stay.  They must have some kind of keyword alert on certain terms, but anyway, they gave her some points for a situation that happened over a year ago.  NUTS.
• Cathay Pacific helped find my iPad at both LAX and HKG.   Now while they couldn’t find it, at least they tried.  Can you imagine doing that without Twitter?  How would you even start?  Do you call CX?  Do you go to the airport?  It took me 5 seconds to type that tweet while it took me 15 minutes to find the CX baggage office in HK airport.
• I once complained about the waiting time for my US Bank gift card hold on Twitter, and they replied to my tweet asking if they could help.  Of course they couldn’t help since I needed their gift card dept; not the bank.  I didn’t tag them either, so it must have been a keyword alert.
• I once had issues with Kohl’s running out of stock on an item, and so my Kohl’s Cash would have expired.  The email reps couldn’t understand the situation, but the Kohl’s Twitter team responded quickly and resolved the issue effectively.  Of course this may have put eyes on my account that got me banned, so beware what you ask for.
• I Tweeted last week about how my Charles Schwab ATM card got denied in HK although I put a travel alert on it.  While they weren’t as quick to respond as other Twitter teams, they did follow up on the issue although I had already resolved it over the phone.
• If you follow other bloggers like Lucky and Grant, you can see American Airlines helping them too.  Now I’m sure at a certain point, these companies will probably give preferential treatment to bloggers, but you know what, if you don’t ask, you get NOTHING.  If you ask, you may get something.

Conclusion

Moral of story – get on Twitter!  You don’t need to tweet every day.  You don’t even need to tweet anything new.  You can reply to bloggers on there.  That’s what I was doing before I started my blog.  I have conversations with readers on there.  If you can’t direct message me on Twitter, tag me in a tweet and I’ll follow you.  And if you are bored, follow Anna Kendrick and read her old tweets; you’ll laugh your ass off.  One final thing, DON’T BE THAT guy who only complains on Twitter, so give more compliments than complaints.