I think I’ll start a Twitter support group, as at least then I’d get some support. Last week I wrote a blog on my web site entitled “Twitter – the Black Hole of Customer Support”. A week later it hasn’t gotten any better. In over a month I’ve only been able to tweet twice, and now I’m convinced it was my colleague, Blair Pleasant’s aura that did it, as she was sitting next to me in the airport when it happened. Since then, nothing. Plus, if I want to go in and read anyone’s tweets I have to click on that button that says that I lost my password, which is odd because it’s Twitter that has lost mine. In fact, the message that you get back when you do this is “Hey there. Can't remember your password, huh? It happens to the best of us”, which explains a lot.

All kidding aside (for a moment until I quote some more hapless folks like myself), it occurred to me that every cause needs a poster child and I just might be it for Twitter support. Why? Because in the midst of it Voxeo contacted me to say that their recently acquired IMified platform now supports direct inbound and outbound communication via Twitter. As Dan York, Director of Conversations at Voxeo put it in the press release, "We use Twitter extensively to interact with our customers and developers and want to help companies grow their use of Twitter for customer interaction."

I get that. Voxeo and everyone else is using Twitter. Putting my analyst hat on for a moment, I like what Voxeo is doing with Twitter as a customer support channel, in particular because they can use automated agents to mine and reply to tweets from customers, and perhaps take care of the customer support load a contact center gets. I can also see the value in using Twitter for multiple means of customer support including sending out messages about sales or events or announcements. I like all channels of customer support.

Here is the “but”; without meaning to invalidate what I just said. The “but” is what I have been experiencing with Twitter can happen to anyone whether it’s one person or a company. Rather than blindly jumping on the bandwagon about what a great social platform Twitter is, companies need to realize that they don’t own the channel, so it needs to be monitored. This is particularly important in that customers will contact a business in the manner they are most comfortable with, and when they don’t get a reply (think slow email response, for example – another contact center sin), they think less of your company. Companies need a back up plan. In my case, I can’t tweet. If you go to the “Frozen Timelines, Tweets not appearing” section of “product support” others complain of not being able to see their friend’s tweets. This means that you might not see tweets coming in.

So a word of warning - monitor your customer support channels, particularly those you have no control over.

Speaking of the Frozen Timelines support group, here are a few of my favorites – out of hundreds – of entries that I have received via email over the past week:

• “Hacked!!! I think we have all been hacked. I NEEDED to be online these past few days, so created another account that froze after a few hours of use, so I deleted it, and created another one that froze in a matter of minutes and again I erased that account as well. Only have my original account and the problem HAS NOT been resolved. I have got to get back on line.”
• “I can tweet.... but can't read the updates of those I follow. This has been going on since May...I need my account to work correctly for a project I am working ..I have recently been tasked to develop a white paper of Twitter usage in Iran.  I do not want to start over and start a new account.  Please help!”
• “Just curious if we're ever going to see a fix for this. I mean, Twitter kind of is defeating it's own purpose since I can't see people I'm following Twittering...”
• “I wondered if our account had been hacked too. I have made it quite clear that we are politically neutral and that the first aid is there for anyone that needs it. I am getting a lot of messages from very annoyed people whos #tags are not working.”
• “If this goes on much longer, and I am unable to see my own tweets in real time, I AM GOING TO GO CRAZY AND TAKE YOU ALL WITH ME.”
• “@crystal is a joke. check the profile. last tweets 2 days ago and just BS and not support related. I filed a ticket with twitter support and got a reply that wasn't even related to my problem. Unbelievable”.

At least I’m not alone.