Here's a unique Comcast customer support success story using twitter and qik.
I contacted Frank Eliason, Comcast Director of Digital Care, @comcastcares on twitter, after being unhappy with the support I was getting from Comcast. Someone from headquarters was calling me on the phone and relaying instructions to me from the Comcast/TiVo support people. I was frustrated because the suggestions did not match my problem and something was getting lost in translation.
Frank got me on a conference call with Comcast and TiVo to solve my problem
My initial symptom was that I could not record Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, but in fact I could not record any HD Fox or HD WLVI programs.
There wasn't any detailed program data in the online guide for those two channels.
While on the phone call, I asked them if they wanted me to stream my tv's TiVo display live, so they could directly see the issue
They said yes and I streamed the problem while talking with them on the phone:
http://qik.com/stevegarfield#v=597823
The call and live video helped solidify the issue so that they could go back and solve it.
It was much better than having to talk through an intermediary.
Frank at Comcast deserves a lot of praise for this.
He tweeted about it:
comcastcares @stevegarfield Interesting. I am glad that we had you talk with the right people [link]
comcastcares @stevegarfield That is awesome. You have to love the web 2.0 world [link]
They seem to have resolved my problem by refreshing my box with new guide data. They'll let me know the final results of their research next week when they call back to make sure everything is working.
Live streaming is a great way for remote support staff to see problems first hand.
:-)
Thanks twitter, qik, Comcast and Frank!
Update 11/17/10:
Frank talks about this here - The Role of Video in Enterprise 2.0 and Social CRM.