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beekers03
January 23, 2009 3:14 PM
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Wow -- BoA refunded your fees? Kudos to that, they NEVER helped me out. I hated my reps and after several horrible interactions with them, I closed my account. But hey, now I get 78 bucks from those bastards. Sweet 78 bucks, too ;)

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nataku8_e30
January 23, 2009 3:45 PM
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Is there some reason that these internet / social networking based customer service people are actually very responsive while the vast majority of the rest of the company's customer service people are not? I'd really like to know why Bank of America can't implement helpful customer service people across the board when this twitter group proves that it's actually possible to be helpful.

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Alexander
January 23, 2009 5:04 PM
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@nataku83: Online reputation is becoming more and more important to big companies. With sites like yelp and consumerist, online savvy customers can complain and actually be heard. The way I see it, they figure if someone is techy enough to use Twitter, they would probably be the type to also submit stories to review sites. They are making online savvy customers a priority because they have the power to make the most noise when things go wrong.

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Ash78 ain't got time to bleed
January 23, 2009 3:52 PM
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@nataku83: I think it secretly comes down to low overhead. I've had better luck with companies that offer chat/email vs. phone. It's almost like they're more willing to make concessions if you contact them through more cost-effective methods.


Sort of like the other side of the coin from brokers or airlines, who charge you extra for calling them at all. Extra charge vs. extra concession, same net result.


Tech discrimination!

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chiieddy
January 23, 2009 3:52 PM
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I think it's the difference of someone being paid barely living wage in a call center on the phone vs. someone who's involved in client services and paid an actual salary on the social networking.

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Anonymous
January 23, 2009 3:56 PM
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Their social networking reps are more responsive and helpful because they are there to squash bad public relations. No one knows if you're on hold for an hour, unless, say, you post on a popular blog like Consumerist. Then you'll get results. So posting your problems on twitter and potentially being heard by many people attracts their attention...

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ravensfire
January 23, 2009 3:59 PM
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Maybe it all has to do with the people assigned to watch the twitter group. If I were BofA I'd make sure I'd assign very outgoing, tech savy people to the twitter group. Prefferably, these people would live and breath to tweet (how's that for a job qualification? \"Skills: Tweeting\").


On a side note, I'm a little concerned about what sort of information customers and bofa are passing back and forth using the public twitter service. I can't help but wonder what information precursed the message to the customer \"I was able to get in. Are you still having trouble?\" I hope it wasn't logon credentials.

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Ash78 ain't got time to bleed
January 23, 2009 4:24 PM
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@ravensfire: I tried to hire some Twitter guys to handle corporate Tweeting and I ended up with a bunch of corporate twits who enjoy tweaking. Dammit!

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ravensfire
January 23, 2009 6:43 PM
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@Ash78: Yeah, it was difficult for me to qwell the urge to call it \"twitting\" instead of \"tweeting.\" Twitting just makes more sense since the site isn't called \"Tweeter.\" What an apt name too ;-).


(\"Skills: Twit\" is a great qualification, btw.)


If bofa hired the people I suspect they did, I bet the hirees are a bunch of tweaking twits. That's what makes them so fast.

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Pixelantes Anonymous
January 23, 2009 4:08 PM
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BofA's level of incompetence can not be solved by a Twitter cleanup crew.

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supercereal
January 23, 2009 4:55 PM
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@Pixelantes Anonymous: Says you. I've had nothing but good experiences with them...

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lintacious
January 23, 2009 4:54 PM
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Wouldn't mind seeing PNC do this.

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Alexander
January 23, 2009 4:58 PM
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I read that Comcast in doing this as well. They have a team that handles issues that arise online. I'm trying to convince work to look into this strategy as we are getting absolutely slammed online.

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Anonymous
January 23, 2009 5:30 PM
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Sounds like a media gimmick to handwave away from the 75% of BOA's Federal bailout going to Morgan Stanley executive bonuses.

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econobiker
January 23, 2009 7:50 PM
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The squeakiest wheel gets the most grease. Let us do a contrast:


Grandpaw Bob in Anytown, USA will only b*tch to his morning coffee buddies that he couldn't get service/product X to work etc even from being on the phone for a total of 10 hours and spending $$$ to have an independent repair person fix it.


Tech Guru Jimmy had the same experience- he couldn't get service/product X to work etc even from being on the phone for a total of 10 hours and spending $$$ to have an independent repair person fix it. Jimmy may then report about the problem on his personal blog -which then might be \"digg\"ed, write multiple complaints on consumer related complaints/reporting websites, give a service an amazon one star, send it to twitter, post on his linkedin professional profile, detail the problem on his facebook/myspace profile, send information to ceo / exec management of the company in an EECB, and maybe even set up a full blown \"I hate your company\" complaint website which then traffics other people with the same problem to report on their problems in comments sections... And gawd forbid if Jimmy recorded one of the telephone tech calls that showed how unfriendly/unhelpfull that the 5th called phone tech was or some comment a phone tech made that was out of line- positively explosive viral content potential.


All of this results in that then next time someone Googles for info on service/product X the top rankings are related to Tech Guru Jimmy's difficulties. Remember how the Dell Hell computer problems of a tech blogger blew up in Dell's face or how AOL was outed with the famous \"Cancel My Account\" recording...

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Meathamper
January 24, 2009 2:40 AM
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Maybe Comcast should patent the concept of answering customer associate questions via Twitter.

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dandmb50
January 24, 2009 8:36 AM
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Can I get a bail-out over a twitter? Great way of doing business. Is this guy for real? I hope they aren't giving account numbers over the twitter? Is he from Nigeria? Sounds like a scam to me.

Daniel ............... Toronto

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stryder1
January 24, 2009 8:17 PM
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I just got a copy of my credit report never missed payment or late payments in years. They have been lowering my credit limit looks to crediters like I went over limit Is this legal.

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Anonymous
February 7, 2009 7:32 PM
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Bank of America is the worst bank in America. They have many ways to manipulate the consumer and try to get overcharge fees from them. After being with the bank for 7 years I think it is time to close the account. I have called a total of seven customer representatives over the past three days to discuss overdrafts on my account. It took about two hours of waiting in total to finally get to an account manager to tell me that overdraft protection takes four days to kick in and that this information is available on the promissory note I signed seven years ago that I should have read.As recipients of our tax money, it is ironic they will charge you $35 for any transaction which occure in your account (that is not visible by online or phone banking or even if you go into the bank) even if the transaction is for 35cents.I urge everyone to boycott Bank of America until they stop their predatory practices.

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Dennis Turcios
February 12, 2009 9:18 PM
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Maybe Comcast should patent the concept of answering customer associate questions via Twitter.

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threlkelded
March 11, 2009 8:05 PM
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For those concerned with account security, I just talked with David, aka BoA_help. When he called me, he just asked for \"public information,\" namely my first and last name and my zip code, which I'm assuming he used to search the customer database. He then asked me to verify the last four digits of my account number, and once I did that, he was able to help. It was quite safe.

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Laura Hanson
July 2, 2009 10:14 PM
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I was very impressed with the help I got on Twitter. It doesn't excuse the horrible customer service you get on the phone. I actually had a customer service rep on the phone get mad at me and put me on hold telling me it would be 20 minutes, after I repeatedly asked for a supervisor. I had asked so many times and he kept ignoring me. I finally had to interupt him and insist. He told me that he didn't like the way I was talking to him but he wouldn't listen! I finally hung up.

But, if you are having problems I highly reccommend talking to BofA_help on Twitter. I had made a huge stink on Twitter because I had called the phone customer service again because of another fee they had tacked on and I was so upset. I didn't realize it would actually result in anyone helping me, I was just pissed. David at BofA_help wrote me right away and then I got a phone call today and the fees are all refunded. It made me feel much better about the customer service but as someone else here wrote, it would be nice if they could have good service on the phone too!

For once, having a Twitter account amounted to something though. I still hadn't quite figured out the point of it other than from a business perspective.

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rprater2
August 14, 2009 9:08 PM
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I called the customer service number, after waiting 40 minutes on hold for before speaking with someone, I requested to speak with a supervisor, told there was not a supervisor available then I got cut off, I called back after 18 minutes I spoke with another analyst, still no supervisor.
I called customer service at BOA in reference to a credit card account I was using to operate a small business, they cut the available credit to less than half placing the account in an over limit status. I explained that this was the only way I had of operating this business, without the business I cannot pay the payments on the card. I was told that a personal credit could not be used for operating a business, that I should obtain a business account. I have had this account for 14 years, have not been late on the account and 2 months ago I paid a large sum of money on this account, 2/3rds of the balance owed on the account, if I had known the account was going to be rendered unusable I would have retained that money, I could have continued to operate my business. If I had any intentions of not paying this account I would not have paid that sum of money but I was looking ahead to keeping the business operating. I would encourage everyone to be careful of transactions with BOA and contact your congressional representative about your tax money that the banks received, they have received our tax money and looks like they no longer need our business.

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