Questioning the impact of @ComcastCares

Are customer-service successes on Twitter worth celebrating?

A debate of sorts broke out over that question during yesterday morning's Social Media Breakfast in Ottawa during a presentation (slides embedded at the end of this post) by Tara Hunt | @MissRogue, when she suggested that "@ComcastCares is a victim of our own nepotism.

Tara argued that Comcast's efforts on Twitter and other social media channels are overhyped by an adoring crowd of social-media enthusiasts, even if customer-service problems and culture at the company remain largely unsolved and unchanged.

I relayed the "nepotism" line in my Twitter stream, and Frank Eliason, the director of digital care at Comcast and the man leading the charge at @ComcastCares, quickly responded with this series of tweets:

Tara and Frank have since exchanged tweets with each other, and I expect a direct conversation between the two--and perhaps a face-to-face debate!--to follow.

But until then, the question remains: If good customer service through social media doesn't trigger corresponding improvements throughout an organization, just how should we be talking about it?