Twitter for business

If you do it right, Twitter is the perfect customer support tool for your business.  It's instant, it's convenient, it's free, it's twenty-four hours.  If you own a business, train your staff to use social media well, and it will pay dividends - and the bigger your business, the more important it is to harness the power of Twitter to keep your customers happy!

Why do I bring this up?  Well, we (as a society) are always very keen to complain about poor service - I think it's good to recognise when service is done well, too.  With that in mind…  I Tweeted about an issue I was having with Barclays' online banking, and I received a very prompt, helpful response from Barclays' official Twitter.  Simple, painless - and fixed my problem straight away.

See?  Customer service is easy!

Cash Machines

Here's something which came up the other day...  When you take cash out of a bank account using an ATM, it asks you whether you want an "advice slip" with your cash...  Now, I've never said yes to this, so I wonder what advice it gives you - is it advising you on how to spend the money you've just taken out?

"Hmm, those trainers look a bit worn, so I'd start of by getting some new shoes, and then, ohh, it's nearly six o'clock, you must be getting hungry - there's a nice Thai restaurant not too far from here which is excellent value-for-money..."