# How Companies Respond to Online Complaints and Customer Needs

DevFeed: [How Companies Respond to Online Complaints and Customer Needs](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/blurring-the-lines-the-flip-side-41038.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://www.craigkerstiens.com/2008/06/04/Blurring-the-lines-the-flip-side/>)

Author: Map

Published: 2008-06-05T06:23:33Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Craig Kerstiens](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/craig-kerstiens.md>)

Topics: [Internet](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/internet.md>), [X (Twitter)](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/twitter.md>), [incident](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/incident.md>), [service](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/service.md>)

Tags: [business](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/business.md>), [customer](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/customer.md>), [internet](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/internet.md>), [outage](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/outage.md>), [service](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/service.md>), [twitter](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/twitter.md>)

## AI overview

This commentary examines how companies respond when customers discuss service problems publicly online. It highlights Comcast's Twitter-based outreach and describes a Zappos customer-service story, while noting concerns about how businesses may monitor personal social-media profiles.

## Source excerpt

So yesterday I posted around blurring the lines around your personal and professional life. Today I'd like to discuss a bit of the opposite of when companies blur the lines. Hopefully you don't, but at first you may think how is this possible. Well first let me highlight some of what many feel are negative pieces, such as when an HR Rep who went to the same university as you looks up your facebook profile. You thinking this is private to friends at school may not regularly monitor the content that goes up there. This specific case is a very interesting one, and for the moment I'd like to stay clear of it. Instead I'd like to focus on some of the areas where businesses undoubtedly should improve, and some notable ones that are doing that very well. I first would like to take (as per my usual) an example from twitter. Twitter is many things for many people, but it is extremely common to find people on twitter ranting about a particular service. While I may complain all I want about Comcast to my friends, they have little ability to do much to counteract this. But when I do it on twitter they do, and Comcast is one example of a company that is taking a very pro-active approach to managing their online presence. I take an example of a few months ago, when internet had been out at Michael Arrington's house, who is the founder of TechCrunch. He twittered about this outage, and had a personal phone call from an executive in Philadelphia a few hours later. Sure, he's a noticeable guy so they responded to him. To me the attention getter was when someone called comcast's bluff they they only follow the important people, and any old average joe doesn't get a response. That particular average old joe did, saying they make the best effort they can to reach out to everyone (HR Block, Southwest are also doing this quite well). The other is a little less about blurring the lines, but I still think a great example of a business stepping out of their traditional roles. This one was a