Twitter Convergence: Customer, Corporation and Employee

Twitter is many things to many people. For the better part of 2009, Twitter was a kaleidoscope of exploration, experimentation and entertainment for me. But on October 21, 2009, I made two new discoveries through Twitter:

1. Twitter is a valuable tool to connect with companies who are listening.
2. Hyatt Hotels is listening.

While staying at the Hyatt Regency Cincinnati, I encountered an impressive associate answering the in-room dining phone at 6am (literally the moment they opened). I was greeted by an energetic, friendly and attentive young man named Maurice. He was so pleasant, professional and personable that after hanging up with him, I decided to call him back to get his last name, telling him I was going to post on Twitter how he provided me with outstanding service. To my surprise, he enthusiastically told me HE was on Twitter. (My experience on Twitter up until that point had been with adults, techies, sales/marketing folks and spammers – not young hotel employees. Learning that Maurice was on Twitter made this effort even more rewarding.) I tweeted:

Later that day, by searching Twitter for his name, Maurice found the tweet and replied to me:

To which, I replied back:

THEN, to my even greater surprise, Hyatt replied:

The exchange concluded with my retweet of Hyatt’s tweet (cc’ing Maurice) and then my follow up tweet summarizing the result of this outreach:

This was a first for me. Many times I’ve enjoyed stellar service at an establishment with the good intention of writing a letter to management about it. (I’m of the opinion that customers do far too much complaining and far too little praising, thus I often have the inclination – and the sporadic follow-through – to point the spotlight on those who shine.) In this case, I had the same good intention coupled with the same lack of time or commitment to sit down and write a letter. However, I had my cell phone, and in less than a minute with less than 140 characters I was able to proclaim my customer satisfaction to the world (well – to the small fraction of my followers who might catch my tweet and any interested parties searching for words in my tweet). When @HyattCareers responded, I was thrilled! My good intention was converted to intended result because Hyatt was listening AND responsive.

With Twitter I’ve met, connected with and come to appreciate some rather incredible people. While spam and sales pitches periodically interrupt my stream, on October 21, 2009, I discovered the power of Twitter as a quick and easy tool for converging a corporation, its customers and its employees. This three-way encounter was new, unconventional and rewarding; all parties benefitted, leaving the experience satisfied. Ménage à trois Twitter style. What more could you ask for?