In Poland, where Twitter is much less popular, Facebook seems to serve that role too. A telcom cheated you out of half of your prepaid? Good luck sorting that out by calling their support. Post a comment on their Facebook page? They'll reimburse you in a day.
That said, I'm having a hard time understanding this obsession over social media. I'm pretty sure that if most companies simply ignored complaints made over Twitter or Facebook, it wouldn't hurt them in any way.
I've noticed the same thing, they get so many complaints on twitter and facebook they could ignore them all like they do phone calls and no one would care
I think you're missing the point... It is bad publicity if your followers read a negative thing you say about a company. But it is good publicity if that company publicly fixes it. They essentially turn customer service into free marketing (so maybe its intentional that its the more effective than other methods of communication for receiving customer support?).
Exactly this. Sure most might go unnoticed if they ignore, but all it takes is one to go viral and really be bad. That's the kinda risk they're trying to minimize, plus yeah it looks great when you see a company "go out of their way" consistently.
That said, I'm having a hard time understanding this obsession over social media. I'm pretty sure that if most companies simply ignored complaints made over Twitter or Facebook, it wouldn't hurt them in any way.