Companies turn to Twitter for customer service

(NECN: Ted McEnroe) - Tired of sitting on hold with customer service? Don't get mad, get tweeting! You may want to fire up the speaker phone for the hold music, and free up your hands to reach out on Twitter. USA Today notes that <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/banking/2009-05-11-banks-twitter-economy-recession_N.htm">a number of banks are among the newcomers to Twitter as a customer service tool</a>, along with social networks like MySpace and Facebook. The article notes that <a href="http://twitter.com/BofA_help">Bank of America</a> and <a href="http://twitter.com/Ask_WellsFargo">Wells Fargo</a> are staffing Twitter accounts to offer help to customers, and others, like <a href="http://www.facebook.com/s.php?init=q&q=citigroup&ref=ts&sid=0875ee3cf0a7d5b8fc392ffdb0042615&n=-1&o=4&k=100000000020&sf=t#/pages/Citi-Cards/53055075664?sid=0875ee3cf0a7d5b8fc392ffdb0042615&ref=search">Citigroup</a> and <a href="http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/pages/American-Express/14994375790?ref=s">American Express</a> have Facebook or MySpace presences. It's not perfection - Bank of America and Wells Fargo have single service reps monitoring their accounts, and as of this writing, Citi hasn't updated its Facebook page since February. But there are companies a little farther ahead on Twitter. Back in January, Mashable developed a list of the <a href="http://mashable.com/2009/01/21/best-twitter-brands/"> 40 of the top brand accounts on Twitter</a>, accounts that included <a href="http://twitter.com/ford">Ford</a> (where communications guru <a href="http://twitter.com/scottmonty">Scott Monty</a> has set up accounts grouped by model and more, Southwest Airlines, Whole Foods and even Comcast, which owns part of NECN. At Comcast, customer service rep Frank Eliason started the <a href="http://twitter.com/comcastcares">"Comcast Cares" account</a> that the company has now embraced as a valued part of their service platform. And if you have questions on how your company could use Twitter for customer service, there is <a href="http://mashable.com/2009/05/09/twitter-customer-service/">a great set of tips from Ben Parr at Mashable</a> that folks can keep in mind for using Twitter. And you should know that our Twitter account is monitored. Have a question or comment? Send it to us on Twitter at <a href="http://twitter.com/necn">@necn</a>, and we will get back to you. You can also follow the Twitter chatter among NECN people by going to our Twitter page on NECN.com.