Yesterday, I had two distinct experiences with Twitter and customer service. One experience was particularly good while one was particularly bad and non existent and in a lot of ways it reflects the brands in question quite well.

First Experience with Twitter and Customer Service:

Our first experience with Twitter and customer service involved Nike +. Nike is in the midst of beginning to push the envelope into the world of digital media with the release of Nike + GPS for running and Nike fuel band for tracking every day movement. It’s a genius campaign because customers willing hand over their data to Nike and Nike can use that to improve their products and suggest products to their customers/followers.

Yesterday, I installed the Nike + GPS on my iPhone and could not get it to connect to Nike + via my log in or via Facebook or Twitter. So I tweeted, Nike + and let them know there was a problem. Thirty minutes later, I got a tweet back giving me some suggestions to fix the problem with a sign off about letting them know if I was still having a problem. Nike + and I tweeted through out the day and I was finally able to connect and at the end was quite happy with how Nike + responded to my questions. I am going to keep using Nike + GPS for my runs and dump iMapmyfitness.

The Second Experience… Not so Great

However, during the same time, I also tweeted to my local power company PSEG because my online bill has not been available for the last two weeks, yet they keep calling me to pay it. Funny. How can I pay a bill I can’t see? So I tweeted to them and eight hours later, I got nothing. Frankly I wish I could dump PSEG and get my power elsewhere but they are simply the only big player in town and the inconvenience I am experiencing doesn’t warrant me looking all over the place for another company or putting in solar panels. But, I am certainly not please with PSEG and they illustrate the perfect counter point to Nike. To Nike, I am an asset with data that they deem valuable. To PSEG, I am a liability that owes them money.

Nike uses Twitter and customer service to perfectly illustrate the point of treating your customers as assets. PSEG doesn’t bother to listen to the conversation around them. They are the epitome of an old tired brand. In this vein, it seems to me that it won’t be today or even this year, but eventually brands like PSE&G that don’t innovate will soon be old tired and dead brands.