One month ago today I was bemoaning the adoption of micro-blogging service Twitter by Australian telco Telstra.  Here’s a link to the original rant which appears down below somewhere.

I’m pleased to say that in one month, the service has not only become useful, its usefulness has completely leap-frogged all other ways of communicating with Telstra: including the amorphous website, the your call is valuable to us 13 2200 service, the real-time chat facility and especially the webform.

I mentioned this briefly at the start of this week’s Tech Talk Radio.  I’m currently in the miserable position of managing a deceased estate, and one of the many jobs I needed to attend to last week was telephone service cancellation.  I made several attempts to speak to someone at the your call is valuable to us call centre, but after waiting on hold and being transferred around the world over the course of an entire lunch break one day, then ringing back at 6:00 P.M. and being told (after answering 4 or 5 questions) that the call centre was unavailable at that time, I gave up.  I thought I’d try the interwebs instead.

So I clicked through the 18 pages of FAQs, and managed to fire-off an email through the telstra.com web form.  An automated response told me that:

This is an automated response to let you know that we are handling your Telstra email
enquiry.

Your message has been allocated Enquiry Number 3861xxxx. Please keep a record of this number
so that our consultants can reference your email should you need to contact us.

One of our Consultants will endeavour to respond to you within two business days with an
answer to your enquiry. Occasionally we experience delays in responding to emails, therefore
this expected response time may be subject to change.

Two business days?! That’s worse than the 13 2200 number!  Crikey.  But I did get a response, within 24 hours from Seth d336650 (possibly not his real name) who advised me to go to a Telstra Shop to fill out a form, or ring 13 2200 for Telstra’s unparalleled customer service.

I replied back, advising that 13 2200 was currently closed, and asked if the form could please be emailed?

Again, I was advised that my enquiry had been received; that Telstra valued my continued custom; and that someone would be in touch in the next few days.  24 hours later I received this, from Astrud d332986 (possibly not his/her real name):

Thank you for your email dated 14/10/08 regarding cancellation of account. 

Please be advised that the Deceased Customer Form is only available at a Telstra Shop.  We
kindly advise that you visit the nearest Telstra Shop to you to attain a copy.

Okay then. Telstra obviously doesn’t have an internal Content Management System like Oracle’s OCS or Captaris’ RightFAX, to name two products that simply let call centre consultants distribute electronic forms to customers.  (Hey, it’s not rocket science.)

I replied back to Mr/Ms d332986, telling him/her my suburb and asking for the location of my nearest Telstra shop.

Another robot reply; another 24 hours elapsed.  Then Astrud d332986 thanked me again for my enquiry and suggested that I visit telstra.com for all my Telstra-related enquiries, including how to find my nearest Telstra shop.

ArrggghhhhhhhhHH!!!!

Now here’s where the story takes a turn for the better.

“Why don’t I try Twitter?” I thought to myself.  Nothing to lose, right?  I admit that I was somewhat skeptical about Telstra’s ability to help me via Twitter, especially since Telstra’s presence on Twitter represents the BigPond TV/internet side of the business, and my enquiry was concerned with landline and mobile services.

I’m pleased to say that the responses I received from Ben Birbeck at the BigPond Team were not only helpful, they were timely and personable.  I’m sure that Ben didn’t break into a sweat by servicing my enquiry – it was, after all, a mundane request for a form – but he was able to fulfill my simple needs using private, direct messaging on Twitter and then emailing me the relevant paperwork as requested.  This basic customer service function is something the 13 2200 call centre and the web-form people (Mr & Mrs d336650 and d332986) completely and utterly failed to achieve, after three days.

My thoughts on the matter are now this:

1. The service which Telstra BigPond is offering on Twitter has grown significantly in one month and it would appear that Peter Habib and other Telstra management have been listening, and are responding, to the concerns of the blogosphere; and

2. If Telstra maintains, and even improves, this level of customer service through social networking systems like Twitter, they will do a lot to win back the confidence of tech-savvy customers.

More reading:

• Lidija Davis’s thread on the launch of Telstra BigPond on Twitter
• Telstra Twitter discussion on Crikey
• IT News article: Telstra faces backlash on Twitter

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