Twitter cavalry can’t mask failings in the ranks

From non-entity to VIP in 24 hours…
I underwent a metamorphosis earlier this month.

One morning I woke up frustrated and powerless, worn down by many weeks of trying to get sensible answers out of my ISP's customer services department. They seemed intent on blinding me with science and passing me from pillar to post.

That same night, however, I retired to bed a VIP. Not only had all my problems been resolved but I had been on the receiving end of truly outstanding service. What's more, I'd managed to save myself £100 a year in the process.

If my personal metamorphosis was striking, that of PlusNet, the ISP in question, was truly extraordinary. Their service transformed from blundering inefficiency to the height of smooth professionalism almost before my very eyes.

So how was it that my experience of dealing with PlusNet could have been turned on its head so dramatically in such a short space of time?

In a word 'Twitter'.

Mixed emotions
From selfish point of view perhaps I should be completely delighted at the way things turned out. Not only have I once again got access to broadband speeds which will allow me to stream audio and video to my heart's content; I have also had an up-close-and-personal demonstration of the wonders that Twitter can work in customer service - something I've been banging on about to any client that would listen for months.

Why then was this such a bitter-sweet experience?

Here are some of the wider questions that I believe are raised by what I went through and which, in my view, are not being taken anything like seriously enough at the moment in the stampede to present Twitter as some sort of universal customer service panacea.

The new Digital Divide?
With the vast majority of UK adults now having internet access, it strikes me that the so-called 'digital divide' may be moving into a new, rather more subtle phase. Perhaps it's not online access per se that's the main issue nowadays. What may be a bigger issue is the growing division between the 'haves and have-nots' when it comes to the more sophisticated tools that the internet offers people. Here I'm thinking particularly of the benefits of being in a position to leverage social networking.

All my initial dealings with PlusNet were via a combination of email and their online customer management system. And my experience was uniformly awful. The contrast when I finally decided to make my dissatisfaction known on Twitter could hardly have been greater. Yet it makes me rather uneasy that, for every customer like me, there are, no doubt, hundreds of others who remain bogged down in the system with little or no hope of getting their issues resolved.

Two-speed customer service
Certain companies have clearly been able to integrate Twitter fully within their core customer service processes and their successes have been well documented. However I would argue that they remain the exception not the rule. Far more common in my experience is the 'two speed' scenario I experienced with PlusNet where the quality and availability of resources available to the Twitter 'storm-troopers' are quite clearly vastly superior to those back in the heart of the business. BT Care anyone?

CussNet or PlusNet?
PlusNet's mainstream customer service involved a fortnight of answering the same questions time and time again, at great length, which culminated in me concluding that I'd rather live with 1999-style download speeds than have to spend another minute of my time trying to resolve the problem.

The contrast when the Twitter Team took over the reins was spectacular: a short, sharp exchange of 140 character DM messages, carried out on a single afternoon during which my problem was not only identified and completely resolved.

A Tweet Elite?
My concern is that as Twitter becomes less of an exclusive club we'll simply be back to square one - too many customers with too many problems chasing too few customer service resources. Setting up a separate customer service Twitter Team with the best people and greater resources is not the way to break out of this cycle.

Companies have to find a way of integrating Twitter within their mainstream customer servicing and raise their overall standards rather than imagining that a regular flow of high profile 'wins' on Twitter will mask deficiencies elsewhere.

Sally Bercow: Politics, maybe. Politic, never

It is ironic that two such similar words, with common derivation, have ended up having such very different meanings in day-to-day usage. The Oxford Dictionary definition of politic is ‘seeming sensible and judicious in the circumstances’ and it is almost always used in an entirely positive way. As for politics…well, enough said.

Such thoughts came to mind today when I read the Evening Standard’s confessional interview with Sally Bercow, wife of Speaker John and prospective Labour candidate.

I can’t claim to know Sally well, at least not nowadays. However I did work quite closely with her for a number of months during her self-proclaimed ‘ladette‘ ad agency days.

I’m sure Sally has changed a lot since the mid-to-late 90s.  Who hasn’t?  However to judge from the interview – not just the content but also the rationale behind it – it would seem that much about her has changed very little.      

The sort of self awareness and brutal honesty she displays in the interview are, of course, qualities to be welcomed at a time when British politics is hardly overflowing with either. And Westminster hacks must be beside themselves with excitement this evening at the prospect of having such a provocatively outspoken and interesting occupant of the Speaker’s Apartment (if not of the Speaker’s Chair).

Sally’s almost painfully honest admission of being ‘an argumentative, stroppy drunk, picking arguments…‘ brings memories of several, otherwise long-forgotten, business dinners flooding back.  In those days, to find oneself seated next to Sally for the evening was, to say the least, a bitter-sweet sensation. On the upside, there would be no shortage of lively conversation and she was never less than entertaining company. However, after a few drinks no subject - and nobody - would be spared her whiplash tongue. I still squirm at the memory of the appalled faces of her more senior agency colleagues as she launched into yet another character assassination of a major client (more often than not to their face).

All of which brings me to the question of why Sally decided to open up in this way and reveal more dirty linen than I imagine our esteemed Speaker would have been aware himself, at least until very recently.

Perhaps we should take at face value her explanation that she simply felt obliged to embark on a ‘clearing of the decks’ exercise as a way of drawing the sting out of any future kiss-and-tell type revelations that might emerge to embarrass the Bercows and their blossoming political careers.

Sally freely admits to a string of past one night stands and it was arguably therefore a question not so much of if, as when, one or more of these liaisons would come back to haunt this now very public figure. Entertaining as I found today’s interview I cannot help but think, however, that what was clearly a very considered and planned reputation-management exercise may end up having precisely the opposite effect.

On the one hand she may well be successful in taking the wind out of the sails of any individual ex-lover on the make - at first glance then a prudent PR strategy. I’m not so sure though. The additional exposure could very easily now open the floodgates for more old friends and acquaintances (yes really!) to come forward with previously long-forgotten recollections and stories; equally the media has now had a taste of blood and I would be very surprised if it did not start sniffing around for even meatier stories. A simultaneous increase in the supply of, and demand for, such material seems to me to be a potentially explosive combination.

The word explosive is, I believe, quite apt in this case because Sally always was something of a loose cannon. Rather ironic then that Sally’s careers of choice to date have been Public Relations and Politics - both professions, at least in theory, demanding a far greater level of discretion and judgment than she appears to possess.

All this said it would be a mistake to underestimate this very formidable lady. Anyone who is prepared voluntarily to subject themselves, and their family, to this level of public scrutiny clearly possesses both a strong will and steely ambition.

This evening Speaker Bercow will - I’m sure not for the first time – be wondering exactly what he has let himself in for. The rest of us are going to have tremendous fun finding out.