InnerTeub

I’m getting tired of people telling me Twitter is a waste of time. This past week has demonstrated that Twitter is so much more than random social networking/procrastination. Allow me to share:

Last week I ordered a $25 padded insert to turn a regular bag into a camera bag. I didn’t know the vendor, but I had seen them referenced online, their site was good, and they had what I needed. I ordered, paid, and sat back and waited for delivery.

The next day I received an email from the vendor that was two lines:

The status of your order has changed.

The new order status is: Backordered

Huh. That is..hugely uninformative. I wrote back asking if they could give me more details, even just let me know how long it was backordered, and sat back and waited for reply.

I didn’t get one.

Now I was about 99% sure that this was a legitimate business and that I’d receive my item at some point. But there was 1% of me that felt like, well, I just gave my credit card info to someone, and then they told me my items would come eventually, and I have no idea when that eventually is actually going to be, so… I think maybe I just got screwed.

A quick search on Twitter showed this merchant has a Twitter account. I quickly (and not very thoughtfully, mind you), twittered the following statement:

Within a few hours they had responded with someone’s direct email address and offer to check on my status. I was offline and didn’t get their reply immediately; a few hours later they then emailed me directly (I have to assume they noted my last name from my Twitter account and looked up my email address and order info) indicating that they had located my item and would send it out that day. And 48 hours I had my item.

(I still hadn’t/haven’t received an email back from my initial inquiry.)

What does this tell me?

1. Tenba Bags is a legit company who cares about customer service, but has a really bad automated email process… and who luckily has at least one employee that understands how to use Twitter
2. Without Twitter, I’d still be waiting for a response from a customer service representative.
3. Customer Service is more pressing to companies when they can personally account to their customers, and when their customers can reach out in a very transparent way

It means a lot to me that they worked quickly to resolve my issue and make it right, and because of this interaction (via Twitter,) I have turned from a disgruntled patron of a company to someone who will now go out of her way to purchase from them and recommend them to others. So, sure, Twitter is a nice little procrastination tool, but in this case, it’s also a powerful marketing and customer service agent.

(Next up: How Twitter made the Snowpocolypse in DC more fun than not)