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3 On Your Side: Newest Way To Complain Online

PHILADELPHIA (CBS 3) ― You know the drill; you need help from a company, so you call and press pound-this and star-that, then wait on hold. But as 3-On Your Side's Jim Donovan reports, you may have better luck online as these days more and more companies are hanging out on the web interacting and responding to issues and concerns on the fly.

For months, Shawn Collins waited for his cable provider to run wire for his new phone lines.

He says, "I called them, probably I guess, about four or so times over the months just asking them to come out and take care of it."

But Shawn says nothing got resolved. Frustrated, he cut through the red tape and reached out to them in cyberspace through Twitter, a site where users post thoughts, questions and complaints for the world to see.

Shawn got an instant online response, a call from the cable company and then he says, "The door bell rang and it was one of their technicians who had actually come to my house and this was all in the span of about an hour and a half from the initial twitter."

Lance Ulanoff of PC Magazine, says, "This is the way you do business in the 21st century."

In fact, many companies are 'socializing' these days; some with their own pages on MySpace and Facebook. Others actually patrol the social sites, chatrooms, and blogs and jump in when they see discussions about their companies.

According to Ulanoff, "That's the great thing about the internet, if you see somebody in a blog or in a forum talking trash about your company or being very angry because there was a problem, you can engage them right there and try and help them."

Paula Berg is the Manager of Emerging Media at Southwest Airlines.

She says, "At Southwest Airlines, we monitor more than 100 travel and airline industry blogs a day. We also are very active on YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook."

She says that the response from customers has been surprisingly positive.

"They've said, 'wow it's nice to hear a company communicating like a normal human being.' I have never had any negative response," says Berg.

Meanwhile Ulanoff says companies have everything to gain to get in there and resolve gripes.

"You start trying to engage people about the good things that are happening with your products, you can build that sort of viral good karma," says Ulanoff.

Honda and Chili's are just two of the companies with a presence on MySpace.

Target and American Airlines are among those that can be found on Facebook.

Verizon and Comcast actually patrol the web looking to interact with customers.


RELATED LINKS:

Twitter
Targer | Facebook
Travel Bag | Facebook
Chili's | MySpace
Honda | MySpace

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