For the last 5 months I have been paying BT £21 a month by direct debit.

Thats all well and good, but for the last 5 months BT are only supposed to be taking £16.

So obviously, at the end of my contract leaving BT was a prime option. Talking to their indian call center didnt help them keep me either. If only, I thought to myself, they would talk to me – where they have an idea what they are talking about, are not in a far away land and give a toss about customer service.

For a long time I have been thinking about switching my phoneline to Sky, its £11 a month cheaper for a start, and as I didnt expect a result on my desire for BT to be british and caring I spoke to Sky. Not without its own faults, but at least I could understand them, and they me.

Of course, as Im somewhat addicted to Twitter  (at least that’s what my partner says) I posted a tweet about all this, I get contacted by @btcare - they are obviously using twitter search to find people they can help.

Surprisingly, BT sending me that one little Twitter and then talking to me was nearly enough for me to decide that – actually- they were okay. The twitter person and I chatted via DM, confirmed I was out of contract and in credit (first time for anything eh!) something I had been trying to get out of BT or their website for months with no luck.

These 120 character messages were providing me with an excellent support channel, that I could access as and when I needed.

Unfortunately, I just couldn’t forgive BT for being so … rubbish over the last 2 years, especially with still being more expensive. My decision underlined by getting a letter from BT saying I was in contract, and were to be charged £25 for leaving in contract.

I got back in touch with @BTCare, they apologised, cancelled the charge and even called me up to make sure I was happy with it all.

And that’s the difference Twitter can make. BT are too rubbish everywhere else, but if I was in contract and they had supported me like that, I wouldn’t have thought about leaving. They don’t do that on the phone – that would help as well.

Companies like KashFlow (@duanejackson) and @02 are both added to my follow list because they, or their companies use twitter to either keep me updated or support me – I like the fact I can fire off a message to them, and crucially get a response – I don’t rely on it as THE support method, but if they offer it, Ill use it.

If your business wants to see how Twitter can work for you, either by intergrating it a support channel or to update customers on new products etc, get in touch with us.