Using Twitter to Ease Suffering

Post date: Mar 18, 2011 1:54:07 PM

I was recently tasked to open a support case with Adobe to assist with a server issue we were experiencing at work. In summary, Adobe is not Buddhist. They are not interested in easing the suffering of their customers. It took me 7 phone calls, 2 and 1/2 hours of real time, and 3 hang-ups to finally get in touch with a rep that would take our money. And that was just to purchase the ability to call support and talk with someone about fixing the problem.

On the advice of my COO, I tweeted about my experience and a couple of my co-workers retweeted, effectively reaching over 40 thousand users. Within 30 minutes, I had a reply from the main Adobe twitter account indicating I had been heard and someone would reach out. The next day (well within 24 hours of my first tweet) I received a response from a dedicated escalation specialist at Adobe.

The case is still in progress, so I don’t have an outcome just yet, but I have to say that I am pleasantly surprised at how quickly and effective Twitter worked in this situation. I can only infer that Adobe (and hopefully other companies) are listening and, more importantly, responding to their customers.