20 years ago, customer service consisted of a toll-free phone number and a call center. If customers had problems with or questions about your service, they could call and talk to a customer service representative (CSR).

While there are still a few companies who consider a toll-free phone number sufficient for customer service, many cutting-edge companies are not only using social media to listen and respond to customer questions and complaints, but they’re doing it well.

I recently had two separate customer service interactions with large national telecommunications companies entirely through Twitter.

Bright House Networks

My first experience was with Bright House Networks, my local cable provider. I tweeted out a question to my followers about which home internet provider I should go with.

Quick poll: Should I stick with AT&T or switch to BrightHouse for home internet?

— Jeremy A Williams (@jeremyawilliams) December 2, 2014

Notice that I didn’t mention Bright House’s or AT&T’s Twitter handles in my tweet? Less than 6 minutes after my tweet, @BrightHouseCare tweeted me back:

@jeremyawilliams Hi Jeremy! I going to vote go with Bright House Networks =0) I may be biased though! Here if you have questions. ~Deanna

— Bright House Care (@BrightHouseCare) December 2, 2014

Soon after, I started communicating through Direct Message (DM) with Deanna at Bright House and within the hour, she had answered all my questions and I had set up a time for installation – entirely through Twitter. I never had to pick up the phone. Another thing I appreciated about my experience with Bright House is that every time I’ve tweeted with a question I’ve dealt with the same CSR.

In case you wondered, AT&T never got in touch asking me to keep my current service with them.

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