So I wake up this morning and check my e-mail as usual. In my e-mail I see an invoice from my internet provider, Telfort, that charges me 49 euros for moving costs. I get pissed off and I twit about it.

Back up a bit.

I moved to a new apartment last month. According to Telfort’s webpage, I had to pay moving costs in order to transfer my internet. I had found that cost to be too much, so I had called them to complain. Over the telephone, they had offered me to skip the moving costs if I would extend my contract with them for one year. Sounded like a good deal and I agreed to it.

So this morning I see the e-mail and I’m thinking “damn, they charged me for the moving costs after all”. I twit about it. What happened next was amazing. Telfort replied to me on twitter and asked me to send them a DM with my info so that they could check what’s going on! I did that and they replied with more DMs, saying that actually in last month’s invoice they had gave me a 49 euro discount. Oops… my mistake! That’s what happens when you check your e-mail too early in the morning I guess.

But I think that this incident shows how a company can use twitter and social media to improve their image and manage some of their customer’s problems. I merely posted a complaint with the word Telfort in it (I didn’t even type @telfort to reference them) and a Telfort employee was there to see and investigate it! They even reacted before I had a chance to call them on the telephone and complain. I would then have had to guess the correct option on the telephone menu, spell my name, explain the problem, hold on line, be transferred to the correct department, etc. But now everything was resolved fast and magically, simply by complaining live on twitter!

Isn’t this a fantastic way that a company can use social media?