Social Media Strategy, Moderation & Management Musings

(sorry that I don’t have any graphics in this post)

Last week Comcast proactively called me to let me know that they were “Enhancing” the cable boxes, and to let me know that my scheduled recording may be lost, and to write them down just incase. They asked that I check my cable box on Friday to see if the recordings were in fact lost, and to re-input them so that I did not miss anything.

Saturday I woke up and checked my cable box, and was very excited that I did not have to re-input my scheduled shows, and was very thankful that Comcast had reached out to me, proactively.

Now in the past, I have blogged about how I had thought that Comcast had come a long way in their customer service . And I do think that is the case, but this situation really got to me, and here is why……

Fast forward to Sunday afternoon, who, for most sports fans, is Football Sunday. Living just north of Boston, we always get the Patriots games, and on last Sunday, the game was a late game, since it was in San Diego. For the 1 o’clock game, Fox and CBS had their respective games, so I sat down and threw the Fox game on, and then clicked on my “picture in picture” (PIP) button to put the Fox game on – Nothing happened. I figured that it was a glitch, so I did not bother calling Comcast – yet.

Later on that evening, I forget what I was watching, I decided to try PIP again, and of course, it did not work. I now decided to call Comcast.

To my surprise, the “Enhancements” (websters – enhance: to raise to a higher degree; intensify; magnify) included the removal of the PIP functionality on my DVR. I of course was very snide in my reply and had asked what else was “taken away” from me with these enhancements, and was told from the support rep that nothing else was taken away. I also left the call with “Add a note on to my account that I will be going to DirectTV within the next month.

I was surprised that a business decided to proactively communicate me concerning the great enhancements that were coming, but had forgotten (purposely) of the things that were taken away from me. Not to mention now my guide is full of advertisements where every 5^th down the channel lineup forces me to be put on an ad banner. REALLY? Are you serious? Yea, nice enhancements that make you more $$$$$.

Now do I consider these enhancements as such, maybe some of them, but when you also take things away, and remove functionality, then they are not enhancements, they are changes or modifications, or plug in whatever you wish. 

Also, as a sidenote, I made a tweet on Tuesday about my situation and definitely threw #Comcast and #DirecTV on the tweet. To my surprise, a local rep emailed me, describing the changes to me and said that they were unable to support the PIP functionality feature in the new guide. I honestly do not know what the guide and PIP functionality have to do with one another, but would like to thank @ComcastMarc_NE for communicating with me, as it was much appreciated. Since then I also found out that your DVR box has to be on while you are taping, which was not the case in the past, so now I also have to waste electricity when I am taping a recording late at night (don’t go there please).

Now I have not contacted Direct TV directly, but I have reviewed their pricing and terms online, and they do look like a viable option.

Am I just being to critical here?

Over the past weeks, months and years (12 actually) I have had the benefit of being involved in Social Media and online community building. I love my job and I love the potential that many businesses have recognized during that time – brand awareness, loyalty, relationships building, research & development, competitive analysis…..the list goes on and on. But there is one continued theme that I hear from people who I communicate with because of my daily observations about the companyies that I have and currently work(ed) for:

Thanks for the heads-up
Appreciate the follow-up
Thanks for letting me know
Great feedback, appreciate you sending this on

….and different versions of all of the above.

My question is what is this position worth to a business, and how long do you think that your business can continue with this position? 

Maybe it is just me, but I have seen so much confusion when people talk “Social Media” with others who are not too sure about it actually is, or even immediately pause and discredit Social Media as “online nonsense.”

* Image courtesy of www.webadvantage.net

If we were to position Community Managers as “Brand Visibility Managers” would that put things into a little more perspective? Would we then be able to get past the initial stereotypes (valid or not) that comes with the Social Media and Community Management positions? By interacting with your community and on behalf of the brand, you are increasing your brand’s visibility, and by consolidating feedback and forwarding that information to the right people, at the right time, you are also providing visibility internally that may not currently be happening.

What do you think?