A common question I’ve heard regarding Twitter is what are its practical uses for a business? There are several different answers to that question but one of my favorites is customer service. Why is it my favorite? Probably because excellent customer service alongside a great product is something that I value very highly in the brands that I am most loyal to. That being said, I’m not one to readily dial an 800 number and walk through automated services for fifteen minutes trying to reach an actual human being. Although if it’s my last resort or the issue is escalated enough, I’ll do it. Such was the case with my recent complaint with Bank of America.

Saving you the gory details, I called their customer service department and was basically offered an apology for the “common miscommunication” that would be adversely affecting my credit score. In my head I was thinking, “Common miscommunication? Give me the names and numbers of everyone else who has fallen prey to this common miscommunication and we’ll then have a common class-action lawsuit.” However, I’m not so bold as to say these types of things and in reality I would have no idea how to even begin a lawsuit nor have the money to do so, so I just did what everyone else probably has done and let it go at that…. sort of.

Right after the call ended I did a Twitter search for “bankofamerica” and “bofa”  to see if they had a Twitter account in place. There were several results but nothing looked official so I just decided to #hashtag it:

I actually wasn’t planning on hearing anything from Bank of America considering I was unsuccessful at finding any sort of official Twitter account for them. But I figured, if anything, my friends would chip in their “B of A” horror stories too (which they did) and I’d at least feel comfortable in knowing I’m not alone.

However, to Bank of America’s credit, I did receive a response from their Twitter team (@BofA_Help) only eight minutes after I had sent my original tweet.

Bingo! I still wasn’t convinced that they were going to be able to help me with anything because I had already talked extensively to the previous customer service representative on the phone about what my options were, but I decided to entertain the possibility anyway. I sent them a phone number where I could be reached via DM (direct message) and received a call from them a few hours later.

At the end of the day, they were not able to reverse the problem that had caused me so much frustration in the first place because the first customer service rep I dealt with earlier in the day convinced me I should close the account to prevent further problems. But in order to make amends, the B of A Twitter rep was able to lower my intrest rate, which was something I was told couldn’t be done six months ago when I originally inquired on the account.

Am I completely satisfied with the outcome? Not really. Was I impressed that Bank of America gave someone the power to handle customer service issues on Twitter? Yes.

Towards the end of our call I asked out of curiosity, “So should I be going to you with all of my Bank of America problems since you obviously seem to have more power than the people at the 800 number?” She laughed, “Well, not exactly. You should still try to resolve most of your issues by calling the customer service line. But we will do what we can when we can.”

All I know, is that I’m never calling that 800 number ever again.