The Twitter Effect – Bright Kite and Digsby “get it”
By Troy on May 6, 2008 in Social Media
Almost 2 years ago I remember reading Wil Wheaton’s blog where he lost all or most of his purchased iTunes music, and I remember feeling jealous when a rep from apple who read his blog, called him to make everything right.
http://wilwheaton.typepad.com
Fast forward to the Twitter age.
DIGSBY
I have used several IM clients over the years, and had pretty much settled on Trillian to be my IM program of choice, since it combined the services of AIM, ICQ, Yahoo and MSN. A coworker then told me about Digsby, which also combined Facebook, Myspace, Gmail and Twitter. I installed the application and had no issues whatsoever.
What I was having problems with was a notification showing up in Digsby that I had a @reply, but couldn’t see them on my twitter timeline (I use the actual twitter.com interface). I almost immediately received a direct message from Digsby offering to help troubleshoot the problem.
Whoa.
Turns out it wasn’t Digsby at all, but my settings on Twitter to “show all @replies on my timeline”
But, I was still very impressed with Digsby monitoring the twitterverse for their name being mentioned, and jumping right on questions that were presented – but probably not even directed towards them.
Bright Kite
I don’t have a phone that supports Bright Kite, so I enter in my location manually, thus somewhat defeating the purpose I suppose. In today’s world of so many different social applications being launched, I oftentimes use a generic password for sites Im not sure I will use a lot.
So, when I really WANTED to use Bright Kite recently, I had forgotten which password I actually used. I searched and searched, but to my surprise there was no “forgot password” link to be found. I immediately twittered my frustration (and almost at the exact same time remembered my password anyway). Within 2 minutes there was a @reply to me saying they were working on it, and within 20 minutes, I got another reply saying there was now a forgot password link on the site.
Yikes.
Yet again, another company that “gets it.”
So bravo to these companies and others using twitter to enhance not only their core product, but also customer service. I’m sure there are many other companies out there doing the same thing. But for once (or twice) – you guys made me feel like a celebrity.
Technorati Tags: bright kite, digsby, twitter, wil wheaton
I love how more and more companies are picking up on Twitter as a means for customer service. This article on Social Times outlines a situation where Comcast handled a customer’s situation via Twitter.
The thing I am most excited to watch develop is when more “non-tech” companies start finding out about Twitter. I wonder how the local pizza place could utilize it or how a university might Twitter messages out to students.
Also, thanks to the nod towards Digsby. I may have to check that out now.
I really thought Circuit City would jump in when everyone was complaining about their botched install that totaled the customers car. There was a ton of negative buzz from that and I’ve yet to hear any response from them.
Companies need to realize the long term costs to their brand by not responding in ways like Bright Kite and Digsby far outweigh the initial cost of fixing the problem.
http://tinyurl.com/3e55w4
[...] Troy Rutter posts two more examples of companies who understand how to use twitter. Posted by Todd on Tuesday, May 6, 2008, at 8:36 [...]
[...] The Twitter Effect – Bright Kite and Digsby “get it”Two other examples of how these immediate communication channels are changing the way companies can develop and evolve products as well as serve their customers. [...]