AT&T;fights twit storm with social media customer care team

June 21 2010, 9:31am

After being compared to Comcast, who up until recently was coined as lagging in the social media department, cell phone carrier AT&T are turning to a new strategy in social media with what they are calling the social-care team, that will put customers first and hopefully a calm in the ‘twit storm’ that follows its name. As the iPhone’s exclusive carrier the online world may adore the devices, but they have some complaints regarding dropped calls and a host of service issues. Customers are known to create a buzz with what the company estimates is roughly 10,000 mentions on a normal day, and massive influxes if there are problems. Almost every day during the first half of 2010 #attfail and AT&T sucks were regular trending topics on Twitter. The brand had originally used social media to forward its PR and marketing strategy, however quickly realized that without a customer care service in place - not many of their clientele were really listening. “I’m glad they [AT&T] are going to push forward,” said Chris Brogan, president of New Marketing Labs. “They are a bit behind, like Comcast was. They’ve really let the media run the story for the longest time.” AT&T will now flag social media customer care on its bills, website and other customer channels to alert customers that they can turn to Facebook, Twitter and YouTube with any service concerns or problems. The company is also currently growing and training its staff to handle the engagement process. Shawn Pike, social media strategist for customer care at AT&T predicts that eventually, the team could save the company money with operation improvements and processes that affect tens or thousands of customers at a time, rather than just one.