#greatBizConnections: a Twitter tale

I believe I was just saying that personal stories make for great blog content, so I’m happy to contribute one of my own. For all those who doubt the power of Twitter, please read on…

Thanks to my job and general geeky habits, I have frequent need for a screen capture program. Last year I decided to upgrade my screen capture application of choice, Jing, to the Pro version. I enjoyed the Pro version very much and used it for several projects, including a usability test for a class in my masters program. Despite the good times, when I received an email notifying me that my year was almost up and the Pro version was about to auto-update (and charge my credit card) I decided to drop back to the free version.

Unfortunately the notification email lacked instruction on how to do this, which I found very frustrating. To make matters worse, the TechSmith (Jing’s parent company) website made the solution hard to find and when I did come up with a link it didn’t work. Eventually I had to call TechSmith – something I really don’t like to do, especially with web-based technology. Twenty-odd minutes and several inappropriate words later my Pro version was finally canceled.

But I was seriously frustrated with the process, especially since TechSmith is a company that makes usability testing software (and yes, maybe I hold them to a higher standard for this reason). I decided to tweet about my concerns, including the TechSmith Twitter account (@TechSmith) in my 140 characters. I didn’t really have any expectations that it would help with anything; my account had already been canceled after all, but I was curious to see if they would respond.

And respond they did! About 15 minutes after I made my initial post I got a tweet back from @TechSmith.

@ncsumarit sorry to hear bout the frustration. Please let me know what happened. I’ll share w/team. <email>@techsmith.com if you need 140+

YAY! Twitter works! People are using it! It’s very cool when a tool can be used to improve things– it so often doesn’t go quite right that it’s super-exciting when it does.

And when it goes right, it really goes right. Later that day I also heard from @Pixetell, a competitor of Jing that makes a screen capture software of their own. While I’m a Mac girl and couldn’t use the product (currently they have only a Windows version but a Mac version should be coming “soon”), I was impressed that they were paying attention to their competitors’ Twitter account as much as their own.

Subsequent conversations with the Jing representatives via email offered explanations on where the breakdown occurred and what was being done to correct it. And they offered me a free year of Jing Pro, which I happily accepted!

I offered both companies a finally Twitter shout-out:

Kudos to @TechSmith for great Jing customer service and to @Pixetell for great marketing! #greatBusinessConnections

…which got me gratitude from @Pixetell and the beginnings of a beautiful friendship with @TechSmith (even if they are a Red Wings fan!). In both cases I’ve made personal connections and both are companies I’ll be keeping an eye on in the future! If nothing else, I know they’re listening when I have a problem, and as a consumer of their products, that’s invaluable.

Yep, it was a good day for Twitter. Got a similar story? Share it here!