I'm a recent convert
to the Twitter experience. I spent the first few years wondering what on earth
it was, and then another couple of years wanting nothing to do with it, convinced
that it was just a way for deluded schleb hunters to delude themselves into
thinking that they had a direct line to their favourite Z-lister (who of course
would be delighted to immediately
befriend them and validate their existence).
I'm not a million
miles from that view now, but I am mellowing slightly. It does seem to work
quite remarkably well as a means for eliciting the immediate attention of organisations
I can’t seem to get any attention from in any other media. To wit: I had the
(dis)pleasure of having to speak to my electricity and gas provider a few days
ago, and as I waited on hold listening to the dulcet tones of Huey Lewis and the
News I passed the time by tweeting about how long it was taking, and asked
somewhat flippantly whether anyone fancied taking bets on how long it would be
before they bothered to answer the phone. Within minutes up popped a little
notice to tell me that I was now being followed by that very same electricity
and gas provider, who then VIA BLOODY TWITTER offered to call me immediately to
sort out whatever the issue was. At this point I’d been on hold for….26
minutes. Well done if you guessed; give yourself a pat on the back and go slap
a traffic warden.
Damage limitation,
see. I moan, and the organisation comes on to remedy the problem before I can
moan some more. And it works, that's the frustrating thing. As soon as 'Gerry'
from [generic energy company] offered assistance my sails sank in calmer
waters. How could I continue the rant? 'Gerry' would feel sad. Couldn't have
that.
I could carry on the
rant now and say that offering to placate one customer doesn't make up for the
fact that average 20+ minute hold times cannot be acceptable in anyone's book,
but that's not the point. The point is that actually the phone is becoming
redundant. Another example to further illustrate this: I couldn't quite figure
out how to do something with my mobile (phone someone, probably), so I thought
I'd call the phone company concerned, and spent 15 minutes or so listening to
some dirge or other and getting increasingly frustrated. Then I spotted a
little button on their website that said 'chat with an adviser'. OK, thought I,
I'll give that a go, all the time holding on the telephone just in case. Two
minutes later I was engaged in a virtual discussion with someone who was (a)
helpful and, more importantly, (b) available, and two minutes after that the
problem was solved. As I closed the chat session I realised I was still on hold
on the telephone.
There has to be, of
course, a certain element of social (media) engineering going on here. It's
cheaper for organisations to deal with their customers via twitter, or some
chat system, where the bod at the other end can be involved in any number of
discussions at once rather than be held up on one call with one difficult
customer. But I find myself not really giving two hoots about why they're doing
it, so long as it works, and by all the Gods it does seem to work.
It's all still new
and marvellous to me, you know. I'm typing this on an iPad, which is doing the
non-manly thing and multi-tasking by also pumping some music to me via some wi-fi
headphones (‘look, no wires!’), and once I've finished typing I'll upload this
to my blog, whilst all the time sat on a train accessing the interwebs via 3G.
For someone born in the 70s when the next big thing in mobile communications was
a telephone with an extra long lead so you could sit in the hallway and talk to
your friends without your parents overhearing you, this current state of
affairs is nothing short of witchcraft. I am in awe of it, something which La
Child, of course, cannot understand. She was born into a world where this (iPhones, the Wii, wi-fi, constant
access to everything, the ability to find anything out at any time on
practically any medium) is all normal. Even my blackberry is old technology to
her; whenever she picks it up she ignores the keyboard and tries to use the
screen, which of course doesn't work and which leads to her shaking her head in
disgust and go searching for her mother's iPhone instead. If I'm having any sort
of technofear it's the 8 year old who sorts it out. "Look," I'll say
to her, "marvel at this, I'm listening to Italian radio live on the
iPad!" and she will smile sweetly, say "yes, daddy," and walk
away chuckling at how much of a Luddite I am.
Technology.
Marvellous.
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